PAGE, Ariz.— Conservation groups across the Colorado River Basin called on the U.S. Interior Department today to cancel environmental reviews and scrap plans for the controversial Lake Powell Pipeline. The Bureau of Reclamation is reviewing the planned pipeline, which would divert water from the shrinking Colorado River to Utah, as water cuts are being proposed downstream in three states.

“Each minute wasted on this pipeline sham comes at the cost of real solutions that the Colorado River’s communities and endangered fish desperately need for survival,” said Taylor McKinnon, Southwest director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s time for the Interior Department to pull the plug on the Lake Powell Pipeline.”

In today’s letter to the Interior Department, the groups said the state of Utah and the Washington County Water District have spent at least $40 million since 2006 planning the 140-mile-long pipeline. The project has been stalled since 2020 when the other six basin states voiced concern about the water project exacerbating stress on the already shrinking Colorado River and threatened to sue to block construction.

“The Lake Powell Pipeline is a paper dinosaur that needs to be shredded once and for all,” said Zach Frankel, executive director of the Utah Rivers Council. “Forty million residents need the federal government to step in and stop Utah from wasting anymore tax money on this irresponsible boondoggle.”

Climate change has reduced Colorado River flows nearly 20% over the past two decades, draining reservoirs and creating a water shortage crisis the Bureau of Reclamation is scrambling to address. The first-ever water shortage declaration on the river in 2021 has already resulted in significant supply cuts for users across the Lower Basin, with millions of acre-feet of new water cuts proposed in California, Nevada and Arizona.

“There has never been water available for this project and there never will be,” said Kyle Roerink, executive director of the Great Basin Water Network. “Let’s retire the idea of Lake Powell Pipeline and relinquish any notion that the paper water remaining on the river will become wet water.”

Even proponents of the Lake Powell Pipeline have said there is no imminent need for the water project. The Washington County Water District released a new water plan outlining how the region could satisfy water needs for the next 20 years without the pipeline.

“The Colorado River is already over tapped, and the Lake Powell Pipeline is a sure way to make everything worse,” said Eric Balken, executive director of the Glen Canyon Institute.

The pipeline would provide water to the suburbs of St. George, Utah. The 2020 draft environmental impact statement said water use in the Utah area was 304 gallons per person per day, more than twice the water use of Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix and Denver. The 2020 analysis failed to address impacts on downstream water supplies and underestimated the threats of climate change on the Colorado River Basin.

Today’s letter was sent by the Utah Rivers Council, Center for Biological Diversity, Glen Canyon Institute, Great Basin Water Network, Living Rivers the Colorado River Waterkeeper, Wild Earth Guardians and the Grand Canyon Private Boaters Association.

People are invited to sign a change.org petition to tell the Interior Department to scrap the project.