Westside Irrigation Proposal: Another Raid on Public Lands

by Tom Bell

Another raid on public lands is underway in the Big Horn Basin near Worland. A group calling itself the Westside Irrigation District has proposed the purchase of 37,000 acres of public land. The proposal is endorsed by Governor Jim Geringer and the entire Wyoming Congressional delegation.

Senators Mike Enzi and Craig Thomas introduced legislation in March (S. 610) which would take "public land that is of low value for wildlife or aesthetic enjoyment and sell it to a non-profit district for conveyance into agricultural use." Such legislation would, of course, bypass the National Environmental Policy Act and thereby avoid public scrutiny.

The project area is a part of the public domain that lies between Worland and Manderson west of the Big Horn River, straddling both Washakie and Big Horn Counties. Arable land is found only in small, non-contiguous areas, mainly on terraces, fans, swales and footslopes. A 1986 Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) study of land which might be suitable for sprinkler irrigation identified about 7,500 acres of classes 1, 2 and 3 soils which could produce farm crops, less than 21% of the project area.

The project has a long history of proposals and rejections. In 1942, The BOR first identified 3,740 acres along the West Side of the Bighorn Canal as being irrigable. In 1977, both the Wyoming Agricultural Extension Service and a private firm recommended that the project be developed as add-on units to existing farms. The next year, another private firm concluded that the most economically viable unit would be a project of 7,500 acres or less. In 1988, BOR prepared a draft environmental impact statement on a proposed project. The preferred alternative suggested that adding sprinkler-irrigated pieces of land to 26 existing farms, for a total of about 4,000 acres, would be economically acceptable.

Three years ago, the Westside Irrigation District proposed an exchange of state land for public lands. The district backed away when it was advised that it would have to pay for environmental studies and a cultural resource inventory. It decided to go to Congress in 1997.

The problem with this land grab is that a big part of the proposed sale area has been identified as crucial wildlife habitat. It is critical winter range for about 300 antelope, important winter range for about 150-200 mule deer and the site of three sage grouse leks. Habitat has been identified for both the long-billed curlew and the mountain plover, both of which are candidates for listing as endangered species.

Important archaeological resources have been located within the proposed sale area. Scientifically significant vertebrate fossils have been collected and studied at a number of sites. These fossils are of the early Eocene period, some 54 million years old. They include the progenitor of the horse (about fox terrier size), giant wingless predatory birds, and other types of birds and mammals that have no living relatives.

Cultural inventories on about 2,000 acres within the proposed sale area show some important historic sites. Some 38 sites are eligible for registration on the National Register of Historic Places. Six of these sites are believed to have been occupied by Paleo-Indians.

The Senators’ pie-in-the-sky approach to presenting the proposal is not exactly honest. They say it "is a win-win project for everyone." If it is such a winner, how is it that the project did not come to fruition years ago? They claim that "as many as 216 new jobs" would be created in the community, and the promoters claim the average annual pay for those jobs would be nearly $23,000. Those figures are highly questionable and are nothing more than promotional gimmickry. They are all the more questionable considering today’s farm economy.

The Senators say, "the District will make use of overhead sprinkler systems to prevent runoff..." Yet, the 1988 BOR EIS on sprinkler irrigation cited drainage problems, soil erosion and saline return flows as environmental concerns. (It’s interesting to note that the estimated cost for 106 pivot systems for the proposed project would be on the order of $7 million, a prohibitive expense that the boondoggle’s boosters seem to have overlooked.)

The economics of this proposed project are questionable at best. You have to ask, what is the hidden agenda and who stands to profit? This is, after all, the public’s land, land that safeguards crucial wildlife habitat and irreplaceable archaeological and cultural treasures. That the Bureau of Reclamation washed its hands of the deal a long time ago should raise warning flags in everyone’s minds.

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Tom Bell, founder of WOC and High Country News, is an emeritus member of WOC’s board of directors.