Central Utah Project Re-scoped

Bulletin Board

Prospective water users solicited to submit proposals for project water

September 29, 2000

First known as the Irrigation and Drainage (I&D) System, then the Spanish Fork to Nephi (SFN) System, and now the Utah Lake Drainage Basin Water Delivery System (Utah Lake System), this is the last phase of the Central Utah Project Bonneville Unit to be completed. The first step in concluding this final phase of the project is to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) evaluating all of the alternatives.

On September 28, 2000 representatives from the U.S. Department of Interior (Interior), Central Utah Water Conservancy District (CUWCD) and the Utah Reclamation Mitigation and Conservation Commission held an open house at the Utah Valley State College in Orem, Utah. Interested parties roamed around the Student Center Ballroom stopping at various displays depicting projects constructed under the Colorado River Storage Project (CRSP), the current construction of facilities associated with the CUP Diamond Fork System and the Utah Lake System.

Engineer Mark Breitenbach describes the water budget for the Bonneville Unit of the Central Utah Project

CUWCD Engineer Mark Breitenbach answered questions about the Utah Lake System scoping process by explaining the distribution of project water along the Wasatch Front between Nephi and Salt Lake City. The water budget takes into account the amount of water imported from the Strawberry Reservoir transbasin diversion to the Wasatch Front, water supply contracts, return flows and the storage of water in Jordanelle Reservoir. The hub for balancing the water supply is Utah Lake. Some of the earliest water rights are held in the lake. Those rights need to be satisfied by replacement water imported from a combination of the transbasin diversion and returned flows in order to store water in Jordanelle Reservoir. The Utah Lake System EIS will balance the water budget and determine where the remaining Bonneville Unit water supply goes.

On the table is potentially 69,100 acre-feet of project water. According to Breitenbach, 15,800 acre-feet of water from the transbasin Strawberry Reservoir diversion and the potential yield of 53,300 acre-feet of water rights owned by the CUWCD in Utah Lake are part of water being considered in the scoping process. The water could be made available under contracts administered by CUWCD in coordination with the Interior for irrigation, municipal and industrial, fish and wildlife and other authorized uses.

"Of the total 101,900 acre-feet of transbasin water available from the Strawberry Reservoir, 86,100 acre-feet must go into Utah Lake to complete the exchange of water stored in Jordanelle Reservoir on the Provo River, explained Breitenbach, leaving 15,800 acre-feet of Bonneville water available." CUWCD is also looking at its water rights in Utah Lake. In 1987 it acquired 85,000 acre-feet of water rights in Utah Lake. “There is a potential of additional 53,300 acre-feet of water that can be used along the Wasatch Front as part of the Utah Lake System scoping process,” said Breitenbach.

This component of the project has a long and interesting history. Bonneville Unit water under the I&D System was originally planned for only southern Utah and Juab Counties. However, at the urging of the Utah Board of Water Resources in 1967, the Bonneville Unit Definite Plan Report was amended to provide 36,000 acre-feet of water annually for supplemental irrigation in the Sevier Basin. It became part of the I&D System delivering water as far south as the Sevier Bridge Reservoir on the Sevier River for use in the Delta area. In 1992, the Central Utah Project Completion Act was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush, requiring 35 percent cost sharing, water conservation and environmental mitigation measures. Ultimately, Sevier and Millard Counties withdrew from the CUWCD changing the I&D project. The SFN System project was substituted, taking water only as far south as Nephi. This project was opposed by some political and environmental interests. Last year in the final SFN System EIS, it was decided to rescope the project.

There are numerous competing interests vying for this last remnant of the water supply from the Bonneville Unit, including irrigation, municipal and industrial, and fish and wildlife.

Written requests for water will be accepted until October 31, 2000 and a draft EIS is expected in about one year.