December 23, 2007--Faraway water pipelines hold future (Duragno Herald)
The Yampa River west of Craig is one of the last rivers in Colorado with no major dams or diversions. But now, a water district from the northern Front Range wants to throw a leash on the river. It has proposed a 250-mile pipeline to claim some of the Yampa's flow for the Front Range. Meanwhile, a Fort Collins man named Aaron Million is pressing for a 400-mile pipeline from Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Southwest Wyoming to the Front Range. Either pipeline would affect the Four Corners and the rest of the state, because Colorado doesn't have much water left under the Colorado River Compact of 1922. "A project like this could well take all the rest of the water that's remaining in the system," said state Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus. The two pipeline plans were devised after the failure of the Big Straw, a pipeline that would have taken Colorado River water from the Utah state line to Denver. The compact's limits mean that if either proposed pipeline is built, it would be the last straw.
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