The public plays an important role in the Bureau of Reclamation’s planning process.

Soliciting public input is an important part of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. The purpose of the public participation process is to actively inform and engage interested stakeholders including other Federal, state, and local agencies; elected officials; Native American Tribes; and the general public about the proposed action and to receive public input that informs the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation)’s analysis and decision making. 

The planned public involvement process for this project is described below.

Scoping Period

Opportunity for public input was provided for the initial environmental assessment prepared for the project during both public scoping and during a comment period for the draft environmental assessment.

Reclamation has initiated public scoping as we begin to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for the project as directed by the court in their August 2024 order.

The 30-day public scoping period started with the publication of the Notice of Intent to prepare the environmental impact statement on September 15, 2025.

During the scoping period Reclamation held two live web-based Teams event public meetings to solicit comments and input that will inform the scope of their analysis in the EIS. The meetings were held on October 1, 2025, the first at 12pm and the second at 6pm Mountain Standard Time to accommodate a variety of schedules.

The scoping period is now closed.

Reclamation will consider all of the scoping comments provided in the context of our legal and regulatory obligations to inform our analysis and decision.