BREAKING: Help us Kill a New Bill to Fund Lake Powell Pipeline and Bear River Development
With less than two weeks left in the legislative session, a bill to fund America’s most destructive water projects has surfaced. SB 281, by Sen. Stuart Adams, would move both Bear River Development and the Lake Powell Pipeline forward by creating a new taxpayer fund to pay for them. The new fund would be used solely for these two destructive and enormously expensive river diversions.
Bear River Development is America’s largest proposed water diversion, and would divert the river immediately upstream of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge and the Great Salt Lake. This disastrous diversion would lower the elevation of the entire Great Salt Lake several feet, creating toxic air pollution the dry lake bed.
The Lake Powell Pipeline is the largest proposed diversion in the Colorado River Basin, diverting the river immediately upstream of the Grand Canyon. This $2 billion pipeline would pump as much water as 700,000 average Americans use in a year 2,000 feet uphill to water 200,000 St. George residents’ lawns.
Both projects are being proposed by the Utah Division of Water Resources, which is now being audited by the Legislative Auditor General. This year-long audit is due out just weeks from now and is investigating how this agency routinely exaggerates future water needs to justify billions in spending for Bear River Development and the Lake Powell Pipeline.
Call and email your legislators NOW and tell them Vote No on SB 281. Tell them no action should be taken on this bill until the Audit of Water Resources is released. Why rush to give the Division of Water Resources a handout when this agency is currently being audited by the Legislative Auditor at the request of legislators and thousands of Utahns?
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