Wyoming Framework Water Plan - Living Rivers Home Page

4.0 AGENCY PLANNING RECOMMENDATIONS
Board of Control/Field Administration
The Board of Control (BOC) is charged with adjudicating water rights in the state, as well as the
review and granting of other changes to adjudicated water rights. The BOC consists of the four Water
Division Superintendents and the State Engineer. Whereas some surrounding states utilize a court system
for these activities, Wyoming’s system provides for those with the most water knowledge and background
to make these decisions. In Wyoming, an individual water right is typically reviewed only when some
type of change is being contemplated for that right, or when a field observation necessitates a change. As
a result, many of the permits of record in this office were originally issued years ago, many prior to 1900,
and have not been reviewed or updated since that time. For this reason, there are many paper water rights
that may not have been exercised for many years, if ever. As we look towards ways to become more
efficient in our water rights recording and administration, information from future water plans describing
water use under valid permits and adjudicated water rights will be very useful in protecting those uses,
especially against downstream claims.
One difficulty encountered during the first round of river basin plans was accurately estimating
the amount of water consumptively used by irrigation relative to the amount of water diverted. The
difficulty stems from not having sufficient data for diversions, water use, and return flow calculations,
which in themselves are cumbersome and highly data-intensive. As technology becomes more
sophisticated, the use of remote sensing products to assess water use will become more common, and the
use of remotely gathered data would greatly improve the accuracy of consumptive use estimates at a
significant cost savings.
Similarly, the SEO’s internal database of water rights is being updated and will be much more
accurate in the future. Other western states’ planning programs compare their water rights database
information with actual water use. Wyoming will likely not take this step in the next round of basin plans,
but Wyoming should not discount its eventual use and utility. Our ability to better understand all water
rights and uses in all basins will be the best way for Wyoming to protect our allocated water.
With recent drought conditions increasing the workload of our water regulation field staff,
technology for more accurate streamflow and diversion amounts will be critical in stretching those field
resources. New methods of water measurement are being developed that decrease the time required at
each measurement site. The SEO is also investing in additional real-time gaging capabilities such that
water availability numbers can be pulled from the computer at the start of the day without a long drive to
visit the gage site. As future water plans are developed, the opportunity exists to assess to what extent
crucial water administration information is being obtained in timely and cost-effective ways. The
“external review” associated with this aspect of water planning provides many opportunities to evaluate
the sufficiency of the current gaging station network and make recommendations for improvement.
Interstate Streams
Products and summaries from the basin water plans and Framework document are immensely
valuable to help document Wyoming’s water use and compliance with interstate compacts and decrees.
Likewise, other products developed for compact compliance are of value to the water planning process.
An example is SEO’s efforts to estimate consumptive uses in the Green River Basin. Information
gathered by the SEO for this program will fit well in the next update of the Green River Basin Plan. One
outcome of the settlement with Nebraska resulting in the North Platte River Modified Decree was the
imposition of significant additional reporting requirements on Wyoming’s use of water. It is foreseeable
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