Wyoming lawmakers have moved $50 million earmarked for a dam planned above Hyattville into a fund to reconstruct the soon-to-be-breached LaPrele Dam near Douglas. Lawmakers on the Legislature’s Select Water Committee, charged with reviewing projects and funding, made the adjustments in House Bill 117, “Omnibus water bill-construction,” last month. The measure has since been introduced in the House. The move reflects mounting worries that building the Alkali dam to supplement flows for 35 irrigating families might not make sense. The project has ballooned from $35 million to $113 million, with the latest trimmed-down estimate “around the $80 million range,” Water Development Office Director Jason Mead told committee members. Wyoming would pay for most of the Alkali project, while benefitting irrigators would repay $2.1 million in loans. Meantime, irrigators below the defunct LaPrele Dam see their existing stored supplies completely cut off. “[Alkali Creek Reservoir] is a prime example of how Wyoming citizens could have benefits for hundreds of years from an investment in water storage now.” John Joyce “We right now have $59 million set aside to build the Alkali Reservoir,” then Speaker of the House Albert Sommers, R-Pinedale, said at the committee’s December meeting. Yet, “we don’t even have the easements in place,” to enable Alkali construction. Redirection of the funds fits with Gov. Mark Gordon’s priority to maintain existing infrastructure as outlined Wednesday in his State of the State address. He called on lawmakers to fund expedited LaPrele reconstruction, protect water rights and downstream residents there, and provide relief to short-changed irrigators. LaPrele could fail catastrophically if spring runoff is stored behind its 115-year-old concrete walls. The dam will be altered to let water flow through, preventing a possible disaster but leaving irrigators without reserves to use throughout the summer.  December’s funding shift leaves $7.2 million in the Alkali account, enough for supporters to try and resolve easement conflicts and other problems, officials said. The state has spent $1.7 million on Alkali so far, Mead said. The Nowood Watershed Improvement District could reapply for construction money if backers overcome other roadblocks, Sommers said. But Hyattville landowners need to come to agreements in a year and a half, not two and a half as once proposed, Sen. Larry Hicks, a Republican from Baggs, argued successfully. “It would behoove us to help expedite this process to get the parties together,” he said. The water committee last month adopted Hicks’ proposed July 1, 2026 deadline. After that date, remaining Alkali money would revert to other accounts. No connection to reality? Sen. John Kolb, a Rock Springs Republican, said Alkali had “a total project cost that has no connection to, really, reality” But lawmakers’ skepticism paled compared to criticism from Alkali neighboring landowners. “The Alkali Creek Dam is being sugar-coated on many fronts,” Tim Gardiner, owner of the Twisted Tippet Ranch just downstream from the proposed structure, told the committee. He leveled charges against the project’s management and participants, characterizing Alkali as a subsidy that poses intolerable environmental and safety risks. He ticked off a handful of regional dam boondoggles attributable to complex geology — geology similar, he said, to what’s at the Alkali site. “Sponsors of this dam are asking me to put my property and my life savings at risk for their benefit,” he said. “I find this unacceptable.” “Despite the massive increase in costs, the irrigators have not pledged to participate in any of the increase[s],” Gardiner said, calling the plan “a subsidy of $3.4 million per irrigator.” Wyoming should have bought options for easements, not purchased them outright before assurances the project would be completed, Gardiner said. A pivot irrigation system on the Mercer ranch outside Hyattville near the proposed site of the Alkali Creek Dam. The reservoir would flood some of the land in the background. (Angus M. Thuermer Jr./WyoFile) “Why does the state put out $1.7 million today?” he asked. “If this project does not go through, that money has just been piddled away into the wind.” “I would ask you to basically put the Alkali Dam proposal out of its misery,” Gardiner said. Another frustrated neighbor said the plan has soured the Hyattville hamlet. “They’ve threatened [eminent] domain to get their easements, which has turned a lot of bad blood,” Tom Shirran told the committee. “I don’t plan on giving an easement because of their tactics.” A dozen upstream irrigators would not benefit and are sympathetic to his position, he said. Great benefits Water-office director Mead said the price tag today excludes a $30-plus million proposal to bury the Anita Ditch, which would feed the reservoir, in a pipe. “Not sure there’s the appetite to add that much additional funding to it,” he told the committee. He also discounted the possibility easements might be condemned to enable the project. “We know the nuclear option is not an option that anybody is interested in,” Mead said of using eminent domain. None of the issues, problems or conflicts appear to sway dam backers. “The [irrigation] district feels strongly that this reservoir project will have great benefits for the area, and we’ll do whatever it takes to try to keep this thing moving forward,” Mead said. Related Lawmaker: Northern Wyoming dam cost ‘close to not making sense’ Cost of proposed Alkali Dam has doubled to $70M Nowood Watershed Improvement District Chairman John Joyce said money should remain in the Alkali account to secure easements and finish designs “so we can get out to bid on the thing.” He has bashed WyoFile for what he called “negative, inaccurate and misleading stories,” in a letter he wrote to the Basin Republican Rustler. He wrote that the project sponsor is the Nowood Watershed Improvement District, not the Wyoming Water Development Commission, that the district has 35 shareholders, not 33 and that most “are family farms and ranches that have multiple families involved with the operations.” The reservoir will create a flatwater fishery and recreation lake and also benefit downstream fisheries, he said, including “a full complement of native fish species.” Finally, water storage projects like Alkali convert one-time mineral royalty proceeds into investments, he said. “[Alkali Creek Reservoir] is a prime example of how Wyoming citizens could have benefits for hundreds of years from an investment in water storage now,” he wrote. Consultant Derrick Thompson told the committee that the design is 60% complete and easements are in place along 86% of the feeder Anita Ditch. There’s no easement secured for the upper end of the reservoir, Mead added. Thompson said engineers have been told “not to move forward on anything until those [easements] are in place.” The Nowood district would continue to own the easements, purchased with state grants, “even if the project doesn’t move forward,” Thompson said. The post Lawmakers would cut $50M from Hyattville dam for LaPrele reconstruction appeared first on WyoFile .