Enlarged reservoir is called a victory for Uinta Basin

ROOSEVELT — With the cold waters of the recently enlarged Big Sand Wash Reservoir shimmering behind him Thursday, Assistant U.S. Interior Secretary Mark Limbaugh reflected on conflicting historic views of the Uinta Basin's promise as a land for settlers.

"A vast contiguity of waste, valueless excepting for nomadic purposes and to hold the world together," Limbaugh said, quoting from an 1861 Deseret News account of a survey of the region commissioned by Brigham Young.

Limbaugh followed that dire assessment with a passage from the diary of Father Escalante, who traveled through the area nearly a century before Young's surveyors.

"A fine plain abounding in pasturage and fertile, arable land, provided it were irrigated," Limbaugh said, before asking, "What's the difference between these two perspectives? The difference is vision."

Limbaugh's remarks came during a dedication ceremony held atop the Big Sand Wash Dam about 18 miles west of Roosevelt. The dam was originally completed in 1964, primarily to provide the irrigation water that Escalante envisioned would turn the Uinta Basin into a prosperous agricultural area.

Enlargement of the reservoir, which began in 2004, was the next step toward turning that vision into reality.

"The journey to today's celebration was longer and more difficult than any of us had planned," Limbaugh said, "and the unexpected difficulty of our journey makes today a victory for those who carried the project forward and for those who will benefit from it."

The newly constructed dam doubles the amount of water the reservoir can hold from 12,100 acre-feet to 24,200 acre-feet. The additional water includes 3,000 acre-feet of municipal and industrial water for Roosevelt and neighboring communities and another 2,500 acre-feet of irrigation water.

The reservoir also allows for stabilization of 13 aging high-mountain lakes in the Lake Fork drainage that serve as the headwaters for Big Sand Wash, benefiting the area's ecosystem. And people will be able to use the reservoir for recreation such as boating and fishing.

Work on the pipeline from Sand Wash to Roosevelt is about 98 percent complete. It is expected to begin delivering water in the spring of 2008 at three diversion points in the city. Roosevelt will use the water to create a secondary water system. City residents currently use a combination of culinary and irrigation water to water their lawns.

"This project is a public-private partnership that helps the environment and adds storage," Limbaugh said before the dedication. "It's a good example of the partnerships the federal government needs to make in the West."

The enlargement project included not only the work of the Interior Department's Bureau of Reclamation, but also the cooperation of the Central Utah Water Conservancy District; the Central Utah Project; the Utah Reclamation, Mitigation, and Conservation Commission; the Moon Lake Water Users Association; the Duchesne County Water Conservancy District; and Duchesne County.

"This did not come easily," Central Utah Project Completion Committee Chairman Gary Palmer told the dedication audience. "I stand here today because many people worked together. I'm proud to be part of an organization that doesn't just talk but makes things happen."

---

E-mail: geoff@ubstandard.com