Sample Message:

I do not support the White Pine County Storage Project. Keep our water in the ground and protect our our community in White Pine County from energy speculators.

About the Project:

The White Pine County Pumped Storage project is a proposed net-negative hydropower project that would develop 1,444 acres of Steptoe Valley and the Duck Creek Mountain Range while consuming large quantities of groundwater annually in a desert valley. Developers are proposing to blow a massive 8-story hole in the mountains near sage grouse leks, hunting grounds, and stargazing spots – leaving behind more than 1 million cubic feet of waste rock.  

There is simply not water available to support this project. 

There is 2x more paper water rights in Steptoe Valley than actually exists underground. This project will harm the public interest and existing rights holders by sucking out 1.6 billion gallons of water every year next to a small community and family farms near Ely and McGill. In our especially arid climate, we need to keep groundwater in the ground — not in new reservoirs atop hillsides and mountains. 

Net-negative energy generation.  

This project will abuse our precious groundwater resources without providing any additional energy to the grid. In fact, because of the energy (coal and natural gas) required to pump water up the mountain, this project actually uses more energy than it provides. The project won’t benefit ratepayers in the local community. And, due to exorbitant cost of $2 billion, it likely won’t benefit ratepayers elsewhere on the grid. Families and businesses across the west are already paying double or triple what they once did for energy. This project will only make it worse. 

 It’s greed energy, not green energy. 

Salt Lake City real estate developers are pushing this project using the allure of short-term jobs to sell the community on a pump-and-dump, specious play. It’s “greed” energy, not “green” energy. They’ve made it clear that they intend to sell off the project as soon as possible - excusing them of any responsibility for future environmental or community damages.  

Regulators have never approved a modern pumped storage project in the Western United States. 

The current proposal contains massive gaps regarding plans for environmental, scenic, and historic preservation. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an alarming 42-page deficiency letter of concerns with the application. The public needs more information on impacts to a National Historic Landmark, Wilderness Areas, critical habitats, water rights and more. 

We cannot allow developers to profit off of pump-and-dump projects that drain our water supply while providing little, if any, benefit to our community. The basin is already in a precarious state and any new pumping in Steptoe Valley should be reserved for future residents of White Pine County over out-of-state development interests.  Tell FERC regulators that this project threatens our water, our land, and our future.