Governor Mark Gordon declared a State of Emergency in Goshen County earlier this week due to the collapse of an irrigation tunnel in a remote area along the Fort Laramie-Gering canal that has threatened nearly 100,000 acres of farmland, and it looks like relief is still weeks – and millions of dollars – away.
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FORT LARAMIE – Governor Mark Gordon declared a State of Emergency in Goshen County earlier this week due to the collapse of an irrigation tunnel in a remote area along the Fort Laramie-Gering canal that has threatened nearly 100,000 acres of farmland, and it looks like relief is still weeks – and millions of dollars – away.
Both the Goshen Irrigation District and Gering-Fort Laramie District held stakeholder meetings on Wednesday, July 24. At the GID meeting, which was held at Eastern Wyoming College, GID chairman Bobby Coxbill told the assembly, of several hundred people, that a group of tunnel experts from St. Louis is working on a temporary fix in order to get water moving this season.
“The plan is that they’re going to make these ribs every four feet to make it safe,” he said. “Every time they put another rib in, they will anchor it to the cement, and start digging the cave-in out. They’re planning on working around the clock.”
Coxbill said the tunnel workers will also pump in grout around the tunnel to further reinforce it. Once the ribs are in and the tunnel is clear, the water will flow. The temporary fix will cost an estimated $2 million, and the water could be flowing in 20 days or less.
“We’re hoping, and we’re dreaming of success,” Coxbill said. “It could cave in again. There are so many bad scenarios that could be imagined – we don’t know. This company, they do this all the time. We have to hope for the best – it’s the only chance we’ve got.”
During the stakeholder’s meeting at the University of Nebraska Panhandle Research Center in Scottsbluff, Gering-Fort Laramie Supervisor Rick Preston told a crowd of several hundred affected by the collapse that the original repair idea, which was to install a 10-and-a-half-foot pipe in to sleeve the canal, wasn’t large enough to keep a suitable amount of water flowing. The temporary solution should have water flows near what farmers along the ditch are accustomed to.
“What happened was we had to back away from that (original idea), which was heartbreaking,” Preston told the assembly. “We thought we had a solution and that we could have water back in 4 weeks. As it turns out, that’s not the case.”
Each day without an irrigation source will be costly, according to Dr. Xin Qiao, Water and Irrigation Management Specialist and the UNL extension office. He told the assembly that with every day that passes, the soil continues to dry out.