ROCK SPRINGS – Several water diversion projects which had residents in Sweetwater County in a rage have pretty much floated down the river as the Committee to Protect the Green River gave the Rock Springs City Council updates Tuesday night.

As projects such as the Aaron Million’s vision to take water from the Flaming Gorge to Colorado’s front range started moving forward, the Rock Springs City Council and Sweetwater County Commissioners formed a committee to watch and lobby against these projects. Don Hartley gave the council and residents of Sweetwater County positive news on all the projects.

After running into opposition over his project and then personal trouble, Aaron Million has been absent from the headlines. Hartley said it is not just the headlines. “We believe he has become inactive,” Hartley said as he explained there has been no movement on his project for some time now.

Another project to take water from the Green River to the front range is the Colorado Wyoming Coalition which involves cities and towns in both Wyoming and Colorado who would like to see water diverted. Hartley told the council this project has continued to be slightly active. However, he added the cities spearheading this recently purchased recycled water.  Hartley stressed this was a “good sign” for Sweetwater County.

A third project led by the state of the Colorado also started work on diverting water from the Green and the Gorge. Hartley said the project did basin reviews and actually set up a Flaming Gorge Committee.
While it looked like it was gaining steam, Hartley said halfway through the studies, the Flaming Gorge Committee was forced to quit and was disbanded. He added a new person was placed in charge of the project and he started focusing on other areas.

Rock Springs Mayor Carl Demshar asked if these projects were slowing down and stopping because of the trouble finding financing or the lack of water in the river and the Flaming Gorge.

Hartley said they believe as the groups look at past reports and statistics on the water levels it shows the water is there but once they start doing studies, it quickly becomes obvious the water is not there.
Currently the committee is talking about how to proceed with the projects floating away. Hartley spoke about moving meetings to a quarterly schedule instead of every month. Hartley explained to Demshar even if they did that, they would still keep a close eye on all the diversion projects.

Hartley said they would probably be back in front of the council when they started making those decisions.