Lake Powell Pipeline Continues to Heat Up – Part 4

There was a public meeting Tuesday night in St. George on the proposed Lake Powell pipeline to which not many folks showed up. The main “comment” expressed at the meeting was this project, now expected to top 1.1 billion dollars, needs to be put to a vote.

A local issue which has the residents of the Page Lake Powell area concerned is PEU, Page Electric Utility, has not, until this week, been involved in any of the stakeholders meetings. The pumping station for the proposed pipeline will be in the PEU service area. It was a motion to intervene which finally got the Energy Commission to acknowledge that PEU has a major roll in this project.

There are other issues revolving around Kanab and Kane County, over the proposed pipeline. Kane Water district leased 30,000 acre feet of water to 4 proposed nuclear power plants in the Green River area. The water only exists on paper at this time, but if not used by next year, the right to the water could be lost. Kane County stands to receive millions of dollars if the nuclear plants are ever operational. On the flip side – Kane County would get enough Lake Powell water from the pipeline for 20,000 families but the county is only expected to grow by 17,000 families in the next 50 years.

It seems to make common sense that a project of this magnitude would be put to a public vote.