Uinta Basin Replacement Project - Water Development in The Uinta Basin

Water Development in The Uinta Basin

Interests competing for Uinta Basin water include: non-Indian irrigators, the Tribe, the cities, the oil industry, and the natural environment. All water development in the basin has been intended to serve one or more of these interests.

The UBRP is founded on and entwined with other water development in the basin. Key stages in that development are the establishment of the Northern Ute Reservation, homesteading and early water development, the Uinta Indian Irrigation Project, the Moon Lake Project, the CUP as originally planned (with the Uinta and Upalco Units), and the current UBRP.

• The Northern Ute Reservation - The Northern Ute Reservation was established in 1861 and tribal water rights associated with the creation of the reservation share that filing date. To date, the Tribe has not fully asserted its water right claims. An adjudication of Uinta Basin water rights begun by the Utah state engineer in 1956 was placed in abeyance while the Tribe, the State of Utah, and the Secretary of the Interior negotiated a water rights compact. These negotiations, in one form or another, have continued for over forty years, although progress toward agreement has occurred since 2007.

• Homesteading and Early Water Development - The reservation was opened for homesteading by non-Indians in 1905. During the early decades of the twentieth century, both Indian and non-Indian irrigation systems were constructed, including the construction of the High Mountain Lakes.

• The Uinta Indian Irrigation Project - The principal Indian irrigation project in the Basin is the Uinta Indian Irrigation Project. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) designed and constructed this project. By 1935, it was irrigating over 77,000 acres (310 km2) of Indian land. Today, the UIIP continues to serve Indian and non-Indian irrigators in the Lake Fork drainage and elsewhere in the Basin. It continues to be owned and operated by BIA.

• The Moon Lake Project - In the 1930s, the Bureau of Reclamation designed and constructed the Moon Lake Project on the Lake Fork River. The Association operates and maintains the Moon Lake Project on behalf of the Bureau of Reclamation and will operate and maintain the enlarged Big Sand Wash Dam and Reservoir.

• The Central Utah Project –

In 1956, congress created the Colorado River Storage Project, authorizing the CUP (as well as other Reclamation projects). The CUP provided for the trans-basin diversion of Uinta Basin water to the Wasatch Front. The Wasatch Front is the most populous area of Utah and includes Provo and Salt Lake City. The project mitigated for the trans-basin diversion by creating the Uinta and Upalco Units. These units would have provided new storage in the Uinta Basin--on the Uinta and Lake Fork Rivers respectively.

For a variety of reasons, the Uinta and Upalco Units were never constructed. Section 203 (a) of the Central Utah Project Completion Act authorized funding for UBRP—a project intended to provide similar benefits, in some measure, to those that were promised by the units that were not constructed. Originally, the UBRP project planned under the authority of Section 203 (a) was to serve both Indian and non-Indian needs using Indian and non-Indian water. Although planning continued for several years, the Tribe withdrew its support at the eleventh hour--as contracts were being executed. The departure of the Tribe made a reformulation of the plan necessary. Eventually, a scaled-down version was developed. The scaled-down project intentionally avoided interference with tribal water rights, lands, and interests.

The Central Utah Water Conservancy District (District) is the sponsor and entity responsible for repayment of the federal obligation associated with the Bonneville Unit of the CUP and UBRP.