Great Plains Region – Wyoming Area Office

Wyoming Area Office Overview

The Wyoming Area Office in Mills, Wyoming, manages the Boysen, Glendo, Hanover-Bluff, Kortes, Owl Creek, and Riverton units of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program, the Shoshone Project in the Bighorn River Basin, and the North Platte and Kendrick Projects in the North Platte River Basin. Features of the North Platte Project (also managed by the Wyoming Area Office) extend into Nebraska.

WYAO facilities include 20 reservoirs and 19 dams with a collective storage capacity of more than 4.5 million acre-feet, and 11 hydro-electric power plants with a combined installed capacity of over 280 megawatts. The WYAO utilizes a supervisory control system for operation of the Federal dams and power plants on the North Platte, Wind, Bighorn, and Shoshone Rivers in Wyoming, and also provides supervisory control for Yellowtail and Canyon Ferry Power plants in Montana and six power plants in Colorado.

Reclamation has been involved with the conservation and development of Wyoming's water resources for more than 100 years. The agency's Wyoming Area Office (WYAO) administers several multipurpose projects which provide an important economic base to the region by supplying water to 43 irrigation entities which collectively serve more than 680,000 acres of land, and 8 municipal and industrial contractors, as well as providing hydroelectric power, flood control, fish and wildlife enhancement and recreation.