Water, Water Everywhere? Not in the West

Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area straddles the Wyoming/Utah border. Its reservoir runs some 91 miles and holds almost 4 million acre feet of water behind the dam on the Green River. The Green, with headwaters in Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, flows east from the Flaming Gorge Dam and crosses into Colorado, turns south and re-enters Utah via the spectacular Canyon of Lodore. Butch Cassidy frequently camped in this area, known as Brown’s Hole or Brown’s Park, as did other rustlers and outlaws of lesser renown. Aaron Million, though, wasn’t interested in rustlers.

Million is behind a $4 billion plan to pipe water from the Green River to the Front Range population centers of Colorado. The best in-depth balanced article on Million and his plan that I’ve run across was written by Allen Best in October 2006 for ColoradoBiz Magazine. I will do my best to outline pertinent pieces of it here as we go along.

Million has a big dream for solving one of the longest standing problems in the arid West, where water has and still can cause wars. He has been campaigning and presenting for almost five years now and has – as is usual with water issues – many supporters and many foes. This is one of those major issues that needs deliberation, careful thought and exploration. Just the kind of thing for borderland walkers to bring out in posts about their experiences.