Hey Merlin and the others, you USE THE POWER so accept a plant in your area. Quit being hypocrites. Driving near Bear Lake now is an exercise in watching uncontrolled sprawl on the hillsides as every inch is being built on.
Quit being elitists and 'not in my backyard' types or turn off the electricity and switch to roof mounted solar cells completely.

There are benefits from a pumped storage plant, but clean power is not one of them. The power from the plant will be primarily sourced from coal generation at a ratio of approximately 1.4 to 1.

This is an idea that has been used for many years to delay the need for constructing new fossil fueled power plants. The power demand on the existing plants peaks during the day and drops dramatically at night for obvious reasons. By using the power generated at night from the existing plants to pump the water up to the reservoir, the plants can be operated much more efficiently. The power produced during the day by the turbines, delays the time when additional power plants are required to meet daytime use. Go for it!!

The theory behind pump storage can be debated at length. But why put the plant in the one BLUE lake in the Intermountain West. There are plenty of lakes: Jordanelle, Strawberry, Utah Lake, Yuba etc that are typical brown water lakes. We as a community have spent millions of dollars trying to improve Utah Lake. Now we want to try and change Bear Lake into Utah Lake. It does not make sense. Take a look at satellite photos of existing pump storage projects such as Ludington, Michigan. There is an enormous silt cloud around the entrance/exit of the pumps. They have to put up 2 miles of nets each year to stop the pumps from destroying the fish population. Ludington has also been declared the worst ecological disaster in America. There are many other plants such Seneca, PN, Muddy River, PN, Salina, OK etc that have all had leakage which infiltrated the lower reservoir. Then take a look at Taum Sauk Missouri which failed and sent more water down the mountain than we saw in the floods in St. George. So before you start talking about elitism do some homework. This is a bad idea.

The residents of Garden City, Laketown, Fish Haven et al should decide if they want a hydroelectric plant situated at Bear Lake. I refuse to be labelled an obstructionist and elitist because I do not accept the word of a money-driven company that claims there will be no environmental impact at Bear Lake when there is clear evidence to the contrary.

I'm a conservative politically, and have agreed with very few "tree hugger" views - but they have it right on the Hook Canyon Hydroelectric Project. Everything I've read show that those who want to build this project have lied to the public.

Now we are learning that: It would use more power than it generates.
It would drive prices of electricity up.
It is not environmentally friendly and would use coal to generate the power to pump the water up. It would harm Bear Lake and destroy its beautiful color.
It would not generate electricity for those who would have to sacrifice their resources.

It's clearly being driven by big money that have interests only in big money, not the people or places or way they get it.