GREEN RIVER - Communities large and small in southwest Wyoming's Green River Basin are facing increasing pressures from nearby oil and gas development, years of drought and predictions of continued population growth.

Most everybody agrees the basin eventually will need more consumable water. Not everybody agrees, however, on how best to preserve and protect the basin's water resources for future generations.

University of Wyoming, state and local officials will discuss ways to solve some of the Upper Green River Basin's looming water issues during a forum Friday and Saturday in Pinedale.

UW's 2008 Stroock Forum on Wyoming Lands and People will focus on "Water Management on the Upper Green River" during the two-day conference set for Friday afternoon and Saturday in the Rendezvous Pointe Senior Center in Pinedale.

The Stroock Forum was founded by Tom Stroock of Casper, a former Wyoming lawmaker and former ambassador to Guatemala under the first President Bush.

The Green River Basin is one of the few areas remaining in Wyoming that has water to develop and the land necessary to build additional dams and reservoirs. Wyoming also has water rights in the Green River that have not been exercised.

Many officials in the region believe more storage is needed, particularly for irrigators and for towns and communities such as Pinedale, Big Piney, Kemmerer, Green River and Rock Springs.

But other areas in Wyoming and other states also have their eyes on Green River Basin water.

In 2003, state water officials announced their intention to determine if it's feasible to move water from the Green River to the North Platte River by pipeline.

And in 2006, a Colorado entrepreneur proposed piping water from the Green River to the booming Colorado Front Range and perhaps to a portion of eastern Wyoming as well.

Related meetings

The Stroock forum comes on the heels of three other southwest Wyoming water meetings scheduled for this week in coordination for the conference.

The Wyoming Water Development Commission is meeting Wednesday in Rock Springs, Thursday in Kemmerer and Friday in Pinedale to give the public a chance to review the studies on a variety of water storage possibilities in the Green River Basin.

The studies looked at a proposal for a dam on the main stem of the Green River near the Warren Bridge by Daniel, and a number of other proposals for smaller storage facilities located along tributaries to the river, with off-channel sites.

Officials said Gov. Dave Freudenthal plans to kick off the Stroock Forum with an introductory talk at 1 p.m. Friday.

Other scheduled forum speakers include state climatologist Steve Grey; state geologist Ron Surdam; state engineer Pat Tyrrell; K.J. Reddy with the UW School of Energy Resources; Charles Love, professor of geology at Western Wyoming Community College, and Mike Purcell, director of the Wyoming Water Development Commission.

More information can be found at the forum's Web site (www.uwyo.edu/stroockforum).

Contact southwest Wyoming bureau reporter Jeff Gearino at (307) 875-5359 or gearino@tribcsp.com