Thursday, September 8, 2011

Water Pipeline to Cast 3 Time More

Real-estate investor Aaron Million's proposal to provide water to Colorado's Front Range by building a 550-mile pipeline from southwestern Wyoming is no cheap fix. Two years ago, Million estimated the cost of the project at around $3 billion. But a new study commissioned by opponents says the project could be three times more expensive, by far the most costly water diversion in Colorado history.

The pipeline would move 81 billion gallons of water annually from the Green River and Flaming Gorge Reservoir to municipalities in Colorado, including several in Douglas County that are seeking solutions to burgeoning growth and a diminishing supply. There's a host of unknowns in the proposal, and in an even vaguer public-sector pursuit of a similar pipleine. But a new report prepared by economist George Oamke for Western Resource Advocates attempts to crunch the numbers and come up with a range of actual costs to recreation interests in the Flaming Gorge area as well as to end-users in Colorado.

No comments:

Post a Comment