Utah's "free-flowing" Uinta River is among the nation's 20 most endangered rivers, according to American Rivers, a national environmental group that issued a report Monday on endangered rivers.
But that report is not only ludicrous, "it is filled with inaccuracies, innuendos and, in cases, out and out untruths," says Central Utah Water Conservancy District general manager Don Christiansen.American Rivers included the Uinta on its list as No. 19 out of the 20 most endangered rivers nationally because of a 210-foot-high dam planned there by the Central Utah Project to create a 2.5-mile-long reservoir for irrigation water.
The group says that would degrade water quality, reduce water flows needed to protect endangered fish, destroy some of the area's best fisheries and dam "one of the last free-flowing aquatic ecosystems" on the south slope of the Uinta Mountains.
American Rivers contended that is being done "so alfalfa farmers in the Vernal area can extend their growing season by three to five days."
"This is a great example of exploiting a fabulous pubic resource for the benefit of a few," said Tom Latuousek, conservation policy analysts for American Rivers' southwest office.
"Essentially, taxpayers are paying to destroy the river, which is home to endangered fish and other species of birds and animals, while a relative handful of farmers get the benefit of the water to extend their growing season for a couple of days."
Christiansen says those claims ignore the reality of the Uinta River, which is already - and has been for decades - being diverted for irrigation to the point the river runs dry at several times during the year.
The new irrigation dam will actually benefit the environment by evening out stream flows, he said.
"I can't tell how many days would expand the use of the water supply and the growing season," he said. "But I can tell you it will benefit more than alfalfa farmers. It will enhance the efficiencies for all of the irrigators who use that water."
The Uinta River drains the southern slope of King's Peak, the highest mountain in Utah. It flows for 50 miles through the High Uinta Wilderness Area and other Uinta Mountain canyons before meeting the Duchesne River, a tributary of the Green River.
The lower portions flow through the Uinta and Ouray Indian Reservation. The Central Utah Water Conservancy District, the local agency overseeing the CUP, plans the dam there.
The environmental group also said the dam does not make much economic sense.
"The estimated costs of delivering water from the Uinta River to newly irrigated lands is $4,260 per acre-foot; farmers would pay $3 per acre-foot, while federal taxpayers and Native American funds assume the rest of the costs," the group's statement said.
It added that Indian Development Fund money will cover 65 percent of the local cost of the project, but Utes on the reservation will receive less than half the water.
Christiansen says the environmental group has got its math wrong. The Utes will receive more than 60 percent of the water and associated benefits from the dam, all while putting up no money for the project. There is no Indian Development Fund involved with the project.
Under terms of the federal legislation, as long as the Utes benefit from the project, any payments to the federal government are deferred. The non-Indian farmers pay for some of the water, based on a federal formula on their ability to pay, and the rest is funded by electrical utility ratepayers who purchase electricity from dams on the Green and Colorado rivers.
"The benefits are to the irrigators, to the environment and to the fish," he said. "We have to have a project that offers more benefits than costs, or it won't be built. And there is a tried and true process for determining what those benefits are.
American Rivers said the final environmental impact statement for the dam is due this year. Meanwhile, the group supports calls to have the Uinta declared a "wild and scenic river" - a wilderness designation for rivers not allowing development along its flow.
"It's a mystery how that can be a wild and free-flowing river," Chris-tiansen responded. "Unfortunately, they are 90 or a 100 years too late. We are sympathetic to a lot of these kinds of things . . . but we can't take it back to day one before there was development and water rights. Hopefully, we can make things better than they were in the past rather than worse."
Elsewhere, American Rivers said the most endangered river in America was the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River in Washington - which it said is threatened by development along its banks.