By Steve Jones
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TODAY REJECTED COLORADO entrepreneur Aaron Million’s latest application to build a water pipeline from Flaming Gorge reservoir and the Green River up over the Continental Divide, across Wyoming, and down into Front Range Colorado.
This decision to dismiss Mr. Million’s preliminary application is great news, from the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s perspective, and we think it is another nail in the coffin for the Million Pipeline.
We’ve argued from the start that this proposed trans-basin water diversion is simply a bad idea.
In December, 2011, Wyoming Outdoor Council, along with many other conservation organizations, intervened in this latest attempt by Mr. Million’s company to build the proposed pipeline.
At first this pipeline proposal was put forward as strictly a trans-basin diversion of Green River water, and therefore went before the Army Corps of Engineers as the lead federal agency to perform the necessary permitting and environmental review. But as that relationship became strained, Mr. Million decided to pull his application with the Army Corps of Engineers, and change the nature of the proposal into a “power” project (involving 7 hydropower projects total–including two pumped storage projects) that, he believed, converted it into a proposal to be authorized under the Federal Power Act.
But today the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rightly rejected that plan, saying that the agency would not consider granting even a preliminary license to this company (known as Wyco Power and Water Inc.) under the circumstances.
FERC ruled that since these power projects were totally dependent on the construction of this pipeline, and since none of the necessary authorizations for this pipeline, or its routing, have been obtained, it is entirely too “premature” to even consider the company’s preliminary permit application.
Mr. Million’s company appears to be running out of options.
Click here or on the image of the document to read the decision.
Contact: Steve Jones, Wyoming Outdoor Council watershed protection program attorney, 207-332-7031, steve@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org