Uinta Basin Replacement Project - The Uinta Basin Replacement Project

The Uinta Basin Replacement Project

Each stage in the Uinta Basin water development brought with it new water facilities. Each stage served a different bundle of water right interests and a different set of constituents. The result is a complex layering of economic interests, water rights, land ownership, management objectives, and politics.

Perhaps nowhere in the Basin is this layering and the accompanying actual and potential conflict more focused than the Lake Fork River. The river begins in the High Uintas Wilderness area and feeds thirteen small, high-elevation lakes-turned-reservoirs (High Mountain Lakes). It then provides early-priority Tribe flow rights though a portion of the UIIP, feeds Reclamation’s Moon Lake Project (serving non-Indian irrigators), and provides additional irrigation water by exchange with Starvation Reservoir (a CUP feature). Because it diverts Lake Fork River water, integrating UBRP into this already complex and contentious water environment was difficult and problematic.

The Feasibility Study and Environmental Assessment for UBRP were published in 2001. As a partial replacement for the Uinta and Upalco Units, UBRP is intended to serve the following purposes: stabilizing the aging and unsafe High Mountain Lakes on the Lake Fork River drainage and restoring ecological values compatible with the High Uintas Wilderness; providing replacement water for the late season irrigation water stored in the High Mountain Lakes; providing 3,000 acre feet (3,700,000 m3) of water per year to Roosevelt City for municipal and industrial (M&I) purposes; providing 2,500 acre feet (3,100,000 m3) of water per year to Lake Fork River irrigators; facilitating improved water resources management and water conservation in the Uinta Basin by increasing water efficiency, enhancing beneficial use, and developing water storage; and enhancing environmental, fish, wildlife, and recreation resources.

The project purposes are to be accomplished by construction (or upgrade) of the following facilities.

• High Mountain Lakes - The stabilization of the thirteen High Mountain Lakes will eliminate the reservoir storage and will return the lakes to their natural levels. As a result, flows originating in the High Mountain Lakes’ watersheds will return to natural hydraulic runoff patterns and thereby restore fishery and recreational resources in the High Mountain Lakes. In addition, the wilderness impacts associated with operation and maintenance of the High Mountain Lakes will be eliminated.

• Big Sand Wash Diversion and Feeder Pipeline - Construction of the Big Sand Wash Diversion and Feeder Pipeline has been completed. The Diversion diverts flows from the Lake Fork River into the Feeder Pipeline. The Feeder Pipeline transports the water to Big Sand Wash Reservoir—an existing off-stream reservoir that is being enlarged as part of the project.

• Enlarged Big Sand Wash Reservoir - The enlargement of the Big Sand Wash Reservoir (by raising the level of the dam and associated dikes and saddle dams) will provide additional water storage capacity and regulation capability. The enlarged reservoir will allow for the storage of water that had been stored in the High Mountain Lakes. This transfer also results in improved instream flow in certain reaches of the Lake Fork River and its principal tributary—the Yellowstone River. The water stored in the enlarged reservoir will serve irrigation and M&I purposes. Increasing the height of the new dam is being accomplished by removing about two-thirds of the downstream side of the old dam, excavating a new keyway immediately downstream of the remaining structure, constructing the new dam, and integrating the remnants of the old dam into the upstream fill of the new, taller structure.

• Big Sand Wash – Roosevelt Pipeline - The Big Sand Wash – Roosevelt Pipeline will deliver project M&I water to Roosevelt, Utah as well as project irrigation water to the lower portions of Lake Fork drainage systems.