Wyoming water district sues landowners to condemn private property for Alkali Dam and reservoir project

A Bighorn Basin water district filed condemnation lawsuits Tuesday seeking easements on private property to enable construction of a canal system and a reservoir for the proposed $103 million Alkali Creek Dam near Hyattville.

Nowood Watershed Improvement District filed eminent domain documents in Big Horn County District Court in Basin, board member Todd Jones told WyoFile on Wednesday. The suits seek temporary and permanent easements across property owned by at least five separate people or entities.

“Despite efforts by the district to acquire the permanent and temporary easements … Defendant has declined to allow [the] district to purchase the described permanent and temporary easements,” one complaint viewed by WyoFile states. “The taking and use of the premises as set forth … is necessary and appropriate for the project,” the document reads.

A summons accompanying the document states that the landowner targeted for condemnation has until five days before a Dec. 7 court date to contest the water district’s right or necessity to take the private property “for public use.”

The document describes that public use as “late season irrigation, water, reliability, recreation, opportunity, enhancement of wildlife and riparian, habitat, downstream, flood, attenuation, and economic benefit to [the] local community.”

The easements would enable enlargement and or construction of a canal or pipeline system to carry water from Paint Rock and Medicine Lodge creeks to the proposed reservoir. One permanent easement is necessary to enable the reservoir to inundate 4.5 acres of private land on one ranch.

While the legal action is ongoing, the district is expected to meet with the landowners to discuss obtaining the easements or rights of way without condemnation, according to Tom Shirran, one of the targeted landowners. He expressed relief that the two sides were going to “sit down and negotiate.”

The district has offered the landowners a total of $97,000 for right-of-way easements on 35 acres, to be adjusted according to appraisals.

The legal action comes after the impasse worked its way to a joint meeting of the Wyoming Water Development Commission and Wyoming Legislature’s Select Water Committee, where panel members refused to endorse another $44 million to complete the project. Lawmakers and commission members appeared wary of condemnation of private property and gave the feuding parties until Dec. 17 to settle differences at which time the $44 million will again be considered.

Whether the parties can overcome a history of acrimony and resolve the issue without condemnation is uncertain.

“We feel we did our part,” John Joyce, a member of the Nowood Watershed Improvement District board, said after the lawmakers and commissioners tabled the $44 million request last week. “We’re starting to come around to the conclusion they aren’t negotiating in good faith.”

Landowners have raised the same question about the water district board, accusing it of threatening condemnation instead of working to resolve differences.

Condemnation “is not the Wyoming way,” landowner Michelle Hamilton, whose property is targeted in the eminent domain action, told lawmakers last week.

Mitch Vigil, a Nowood Watershed Improvement District board member said time is of the essence. “We have a short window to negotiate,” he said. A Nov. 3 water district election for three board seats saw voters choose a majority who backed eminent domain.

“The results of the election speak for themselves,” said Vigil, an incumbent who won reelection. “I believe the vote is a clear indication of the direction the community wants the board to take.”

“This reservoir has the potential to benefit thousands of people,” he said, “but is hung up by a few.”

The reservoir would hold about 9,000 acre feet of water impounded by an earth embankment 100 feet high and half a mile long. The resulting reservoir would be 312 acres when full, providing late-season irrigation for some 33 families in eight out of 10 years. It would always have at least a 132-acre pool for recreation.