Senate committee debates House Bill 117: LaPrele Dam funding, Alkali Creek easements and deleted loan for temporary wells

The Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee examined House Bill 117, the omnibus water-construction bill, focusing most heavily on funding shifts for LaPrele Dam rehabilitation, a long-running Alkali Creek Reservoir easement dispute and a short-lived amendment that would have created a $1 million grant and $19 million loan program for temporary wells.

The bill allocates state severance-tax money across multiple water development accounts and includes emergency infusions for two projects: a $20 million addition for a damaged irrigation tunnel and a funding package to address the condemned LaPrele Dam. Committee members debated transferring $50 million from the Alkali Creek Reservoir appropriation to fund LaPrele and discussed limits on state authority over dam decommissioning and reconstruction.

Why it matters: HB 117 would move tens of millions of dollars in state water-development funding and set deadlines and conditions that affect water users, infrastructure contractors and property owners in eastern Wyoming. The LaPrele project involves federal funds and a condemned dam whose decommissioning has already begun; the Alkali Creek funding has been stalled by unresolved easements with private landowners.

The committee heard from Jason Mead, director of the Water Development Office, and George Mosier of the Water Development Office, who walked members through the bill's account structure and project list. Mead told the committee that the Alkali Creek Reservoir project has been in planning and permitting stages for years and that roughly $59 million had been appropriated to it historically; about $5 million remained available for easement acquisition after prior…