Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News - June 11, 2004
Hit hard by the drought, the Laramie River Station is negotiating with nearby local farmers to use their irrigation water and stave off a shortage of water necessary to its power production process.
Employing about 309, the station is the second-largest employer in the
Wheatland area. It supplies electricity to six electrical co-ops and generates
power that travels as far as Lincoln, Neb.
The station is looking to buy about 10,000 acre-feet of water, which could be
necessary to keep the plant running in early 2006 if water levels at Grayrocks
Reservoir continue to drop.
"What we're doing is a hedge against the drought lasting longer than any
one of us would prefer," said Floyd Robb, vice president of communications
for Basin Electric Power Cooperative, one of the entities that make up the
Missouri Basin Power Project. "We're certainly hopeful that this winter
there will be snow or rain, and we won't have to use it."
The station relies on water from Grayrocks Reservoir, located about seven
miles away on the Laramie River. The reservoir provides the plant with up to
19,000 acre-feet of water a year for steam and evaporative cooling. But the
drought has hit the reservoir hard since 2001. It currently holds about 38,000
acre-feet of water, or 37 percent of capacity, Robb said.
The outlook for the future isn't rosy either. State Climatologist Jan Curtis
said Thursday the spring was disappointing for the state in terms of moisture,
and conditions are rapidly deteriorating.
John Barnes, a surface water administrator with the Wyoming State Engineer's
Office, said this is the first time a coal-fired plant indicated to the state
it's having problems coming up with water availability for the cooling process.
During a Drought Management Task Force meeting Thursday, Barnes explained
that an additional 10,000 acre-feet of water could help the station last from
August 2005 until early 2006, when it's hoped that runoff from melting snows
could kick in.
Robb said he did not want to speculate as to what would happen to the station
if the drought persists.
Building temporary pipelines to get the new sources of well water to the
plant will be costly, but Robb said it's too early to know any specific numbers.
Negotiations between the station and irrigators will be proprietary, he said.
The State Engineer's Office has been involved in the discussion because it
will have to approve changes that will allow the irrigation water to be used for
industrial purposes.
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