Help Stop a Bad Deal for Wyoming
Ask Wyoming’s leaders to stand up for the Miracle Mile, bighorn sheep, and North Platte communities
The proposed Seminoe Pumped Storage Project is a bad project, in a bad place, and a bad deal for Wyoming.
Let your voice be heard
This massive energy-storage project would put the Miracle Mile, Seminoe State Park, local recreation, Wyoming communities tied to the North Platte, and the Ferris-Seminoe bighorn sheep herd at risk. This herd is Wyoming’s healthiest bighorn sheep herd and the state’s only viable source population for future bighorn sheep restoration.
FERC’s final EIS confirms this project would be a net energy consumer. It uses energy to pump water uphill, then generates less energy when that water is released back down. Wyoming would be left carrying the impacts to fish, wildlife, water, recreation, public lands, and local communities while the benefits flow into broader electricity markets.
The project also appears to need federal tax subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act and a 5-to-7-year waiver of seasonal wildlife protections in the BLM’s Rawlins Resource Management Plan to be financially feasible. Those protections exist to safeguard bighorn sheep winter range, lambing habitat, sage-grouse habitat, raptor nesting areas, and other wildlife values that matter to Wyoming.
A new opportunity for Wyoming to be heard
The Bureau of Land Management has determined that additional environmental analysis is needed before it can decide whether to grant a right-of-way for the Seminoe Pumped Storage Project.
BLM and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will now conduct additional review and consider changes to the Rawlins Resource Management Plan. That review will specifically examine crucial big game habitat, the Miracle Mile and aquatic resources, hunting, fishing, recreation, tourism, local economic impacts, and alternatives.
The project is still very much alive. But this additional review gives Wyoming another opportunity to make sure our fish, wildlife, local communities, state agencies, counties, and conservation districts have a meaningful voice before federal decisions are made.
This is not responsible energy development.
It is a bad deal for Wyoming.
Wyoming’s elected leaders can help make sure this new federal review takes Wyoming seriously.
Send a note to Senators Barrasso and Lummis, Representative Hageman, and Governor Gordon today.
Why it matters
The project threatens one of Wyoming’s premier trout fisheries.
- It puts Wyoming’s healthiest bighorn sheep herd and the state’s only viable source population for future bighorn sheep restoration at risk.
- It appears to rely on waiving wildlife protections now and promising future mitigation later.
- It includes no enforceable biological stop-work triggers if bighorn sheep are being harmed.
- It would industrialize a prized recreation landscape.
- It uses federal tax subsidies to help make the project pencil out.
- It asks Wyoming to carry the damage while others get the benefit.
Our ask
The new BLM review gives Wyoming another opportunity to get this right.
Please ask Senators Barrasso and Lummis, Representative Hageman, and Governor Gordon to stay closely engaged and make sure:
- Wyoming Game and Fish and other relevant state agencies have a meaningful role in the process.
- Existing protections for crucial big game habitat and seasonal wildlife needs are taken seriously.
- Impacts to the Miracle Mile, the Ferris-Seminoe bighorn sheep herd, hunting, fishing, recreation, tourism, and local communities receive a full and honest review.
- Reasonable alternatives that avoid or reduce conflicts with Wyoming wildlife and existing land-use protections receive serious consideration.
- Counties, conservation districts, local residents, hunters, anglers, and other Wyoming voices are heard.
This is a federal process with Wyoming consequences. Our elected leaders have an opportunity to make sure Wyoming has a real voice in what happens next.