The Wyoming State Engineer’s office issued an order for the LaPrele Dam near Douglas to be breached after the discovery and confirmation of cracks that reached to the foundation. This has rallied members of the community who depend on the dam and the water rights that come with it for their livelihoods. As of now, the breach order must take place before April 1, 2025.
Wyoming State Engineer Brandon Gebhart recently explained to the interim Select Water Legislative Committee that engineers came together quickly to agree that action had to be taken.
“On Oct. 7 of this year, we were informed by the consultants that the cracks have changed. We decided that we needed to do a full inspection, that full inspection occurred the following week on Oct. 14 and 15,” explained Gebhart. “We got some preliminary results from that section that things have changed, the cracks have grown and a new crack was identified on the front face of the dam. On Oct. 24 in Cheyenne, [we held] a 10 hour meeting to discuss the results of the new investigation…essentially everybody had a consensus agreement that [the dam] needed to be breached.”
Engineers tried to avoid further structural failure to the dam in 2019. They implemented a limit on how much water can enter the dam but it failed to prevent continued degradation. Engineers say it can handle this winter, but spring runoff may be too much water. They are worried that a completely full dam would have a catastrophic failure. While the dam was drained earlier this year, engineers say spring runoff could overwhelm the dam’s ability to fill the dam with more water than it can structurally handle. A failure would send chunks of concrete, debris and water into nearby infrastructure and the Natural Bridge Park. Without a solution to stopping that runoff, or controlling how much water can fill the dam, breaching becomes one of the few remaining options. That means a controlled leaking of the dam.
However, Gebhart said his office would be open to discussing alternatives if any were feasible. Local ranchers and farmers believe there are some alternatives. Lawmakers discussed those with public commentators after Gebhart presented.
Primarily, lawmakers thought about ways to raise money for the construction of a new dam, which would provide a new source of water access for locals. The dam provides water for over 100 shareholders in the La Prele Irrigation District. However, Leonard Chamberlain, who grew up in the irrigation district, thinks such a construction project would be a decades-long process that punishes water rights holders.
“I realized they're talking well the dam could fail, yes it could, but … the more reasonable solution would be to keep it down low enough so that you could not endanger losing these water rights,” he told the committee. “Colorado has [a dam] they're building right now. Took them 15 years to get through the legal hassles to put the thing up and it's still not done. Not only [that but] environmental groups will be attacking us, trying to keep the structure from being built.”
Shane Cross with Boot Ranch had similar concerns. He said the potential economic loss makes this issue bigger than just Douglas.
“We've sold cattle in Torrington, in the old Glen Rock livestock markets and in Buffalo. We purchased equipment in Casper and Wheatland,” Cross said. “So this is not just a local issue. It's an eastern Wyoming issue. And it will have regional impacts across the state if we don't raise funds for a new dam.”
Community members, engineers and the state Legislature will continue to monitor and consider additional solutions. But as of right now, engineers appear to be firm on their position.
Peter Rausch is an engineer consultant with Respec, who has been working on the dam since 2019. He said, simply put, the risk of a dam failure supersedes everything else.
“Given the information and the cracks that we found, we've determined that the probability of a failure and the consequence of a failure, far exceeds any other concern at this point,” said Rausch.
The committee drafted a bill with the intention of reforming the State Engineer office's ability to issue breach orders and to secure water rights in the case of breach orders or possible abandonment. But members voted, at the request of some public commenters, to instead try two different, more focused bills. Lawmakers voted to table the bill until the next meeting on Dec. 19.
