Click the link to read the article on the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel website (Dennis Webb). Here’s an excerpt:
October 25, 2025
Utah’s high court has backed that state engineer’s decision to reject a proposal to pipe water from the Green River to Colorado’s Front Range. The project’s proponent is viewing the ruling as only a temporary setback.
“Look, the court gave us a C-minus on a couple homework issues. We’ll resolve it and get our thesis straightened up and get on down the road,” Aaron Million, founder, CEO and chair of Water Horse Resources, LLC., said Friday in an interview…
In 2018, Water Horse filed a water export application with the Utah state engineer. Million wants to divert 55,000 acre-feet a year of water from two points on the Green River south of Flaming Gorge Reservoir in Daggett County in northeastern Utah…In 2020, Utah State Engineer Teresa Wilhelmsen rejected Million’s latest proposal, in part citing uncertainty over whether it would count against Colorado’s allocation of Colorado River water or Utah’s under a 1948 compact between Upper Colorado River states. Million says it would count against Colorado’s because that’s where the water would be used. A lower court had upheld Wilhelmsen’s findings. The state’s Supreme Court ruled in part that before the state engineer can grant Water Horse an export appropriation, the company must show the appropriation will be beneficially used in Colorado. Million indicated in comments to the Sentinel on Friday that meeting the beneficial use requirement won’t be a problem. He said the court in its ruling was helpful in showing that the state’s water export statute has a low bar for exports to be allowed. In upholding the Utah state engineer’s determination, both the lower court and Utah Supreme Court noted that Water Horse hasn’t filed any application in Colorado for approval of its water appropriation or project and hasn’t asked the state of Colorado or Upper Colorado River Commission to have the appropriation counted against Colorado’s Upper Colorado River Compact allocation…Water Horse had argued that the Upper Colorado River Compact required the Utah state engineer to approve its application even as the state export statute required it to be rejected, and that the compact pre-empts the state law. But the state Supreme Court disagreed that they were in conflict. Million voiced confidence that Water Horse will be starting construction on the project “in the near term” and the ruling won’t affect that.
