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Let your voice be heard

Wyoming is our home. It is a pristine piece of heaven in the middle of our Nation, mostly untouched and sparsely populated, and that’s the way we like it.

Apparently, the Department of Environmental Quality doesn’t see it like that.

Millions of gallons of tainted water, 8.27 million per day in fact, is slated to be dumped into Boysen Reservoir along with 2,161 tons of dissolved oilfield pollutants per month from the Moneta Divide oilfield if Aethon Energy gets their permit.

The company is expanding to 4,250 wells between Shoshoni and Moneta, which is good for the oil industry, but their plan for dumping into our waterways is far from good.

These pollutants would go directly into Alkali and Badwater Creek as mixing zones before falling into Boysen. Allegedly, this will mix with the water in Boysen to dilute the pollution before it's sent over the dam into the Wind River.

The Wind River, which cuts its way through Reservation lands, is a Class 1 waterway in which no further water degradation is allowed.

The Wind River meets the Big Horn at the Wedding of the Waters where the pollutants will not only have to go through our local water plant, but heads on down the Big Horn Basin where it irrigates 70,575 acres of food for both humans and animals and waters golf courses and cemeteries.

Thousands of us float the river every summer. Whitewater rafting is huge through the canyon. Fly fishing for our world famous trout goes on all year. Families swim and boat on Boysen Reservoir.

Neither the County Commissioners nor the Town of Thermopolis were advised this was even a possibility. The comment period that should have been open to the public is now about to close with no one even being aware of what is proposed.

Both the Town and County Commissioners are sending letters of request to the DEQ in Cheyenne to allow an extension of the public comment period so our voices can be heard.

The comment period is slated to close on April 17, so we do not have a lot of time.

Send your written comments via email to Kevin.Frederick@wyo.gov, the Administrator of the Water Quality Division of the DEQ in Wyoming. You can also send a letter to his office at 200 West 17th Street, Cheyenne, 82002.

 

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