Wyoming Water Forum

September 9, 2025: Wyoming State Engineer, Brandon Gebhart & Interstate Streams Staff: Wyoming State Engineer's Program Update

The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office will present existing and potential programs available to Wyoming water users in the near future. An update of a proposed Pilot Conservation Program that can inform the feasibility of conservation programs with specific guidelines will be provided, along with an update of the Diversion and Telemetry Confirmation Project and the Diversion and Telemetry Program that will assist water users with the purchase of measuring devices beginning in 2025-2026.  

October 14, 2025: Otto Lang: Simulating snowpack response to post-fire canopy loss: A case study of the 2024 Fish Creek & Pack Trail wildfires, Wyoming 

Otto Lang is a postdoctoral researcher at Boise State University, working jointly with the Henrys Fork Foundation to improve predictions of how and when the seasonal snowpack melts across the Upper Snake River Watershed of Idaho and Wyoming. Originally from Pocatello, Idaho, Otto has a background in snow hydrology and geology and enjoys integrating field observations, satellite data, and modeling to better understand snow processes and their importance for water resources. In addition to his research, he teaches avalanche education classes at the University of Utah and loves to ski, bike, and fish throughout the mountains of the West. 

Forest canopies have a large influence on snowpack mass and energy exchange and are increasingly susceptible to disturbance under a changing climate. Moderate to high severity wildfire can lead to losses in canopy cover that result in increased penetration of solar radiation and decreases in longwave radiation to underlying snow cover. To understand how fire-induced changes to forest canopy and the local energy balance affect snow accumulation and melt at a spatially-distributed scale, we carried out a suite of numerical experiments using physically-based snow energy balance models under pre- and post-fire vegetation representations. Model runs were conducted for water year 2025 over the area encompassing both the Fish Creek and Pack Trail wildfires (Togwotee Pass, Wyoming), which collectively burned ~360 km2 of predominantly montane needle-leaf forests and sagebrush steppe during August-November 2024. To represent forest change before and after the fire, we estimated canopy coefficients used in the snow model framework from static pre-fire (2024) and post-fire (2025) Sentinel-2 Leaf Area Index (LAI) images. Preliminary results reveal that LAI-based canopy parameterizations resulted in lower canopy densities compared to model defaults, and that fire-induced reductions to canopy needle leaf area, alone, caused snow to melt ~1 week earlier within the burned region. From this study, we present a simple, observation-informed methodology for updating vegetation parameterizations within physically-based snow models, while providing insight into snowmelt sensitivity to post-fire canopy reduction over mountainous terrain.

November 13, 2025: TBA- note this is Thursday due to Veteran's day

Rachel Eryes: Harmful Cyanobacteria Blooms (HCBs) in Wyoming Waters 

This is my third year working with the WDEQ HCB Program and am currently the program coordinator. I love my job and speaking about HCBs to anyone who is interested. I was born and raised in Wyoming, and prior to this work, did not know what an HCB was or what it meant to me as a recreator. I am working to increase public awareness and cooperator understanding to ensure the public can make informed decisions about how to recreate in Wyoming Waters. The presentation will discuss what are HCBs, what to do if you encounter a bloom, what the WDEQ HCB Program is doing, and what can be done to manage HCBs. 

December 9, 2025: TBA

January 13, 2026:  Paul Dey: Applying Wyoming’s Stream Quantification Tool on Savery Creek: 5 years of Monitoring Results 

I am the Aquatic Habitat Program Manager for Wyoming Game and Fish Department, based out of Cheyenne. I lead our aquatic habitat program which works to protect, restore and enhance Wyoming’s water, watersheds and waterways. Our 13 employees include seven regional aquatic habitat biologists, a statewide fish passage coordinator, a statewide fish passage biologist, a Wyoming Landscape Conservation Initiative coordinator, an aquatic habitat program manager and assistant manager and a water management instream flow biologist. 

The Savery Creek stream restoration is a collaborative effort led by Trout Unlimited (TU) and the Little Snake River Conservation District (LSCRCD) in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Wyoming Water Development Office (WWDO), and Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD). Restoration of the 3.5 mile long tail water immediately downstream of High Savery Reservoir is a multi-year, multi-phase effort that began in 2017-18. Various phases of construction occurred in 2019-2020, and 2024-2025 with another phase planned for 2026. This stream restoration provides an excellent opportunity to use the Wyoming Stream Quantification Tool (WSQT) to assess restoration effectiveness. Pre- and post-construction WSQT data were collected in 2019-2022, and in 2025 on various stream sub reaches. SQT data analysis revealed how restoration designs and construction yielded functional improvements as well as opportunities for improvement in future phases. The presentation details how the SQT tool calculates functional improvements from stream restoration and compares accrued benefits in the various Savery Creek restored sub reaches. This application of the WSQT demonstrates how the tool can be used to communicate about stream restoration benefits and compares potential benefits from alternative approaches. 

February 10, 2026:  Jim Mildenberger & Maren Anderson: Microbial Source Tracking at WPHL

Jim Mildenberger is the WPHL molecular Laboratory Supervisor. He oversees the Next-Generation Sequencing, traditional Molecular, and Wastewater sections. Maren Anderson is the WPHL molecular Scientist. She is responsible for MST Testing and human clinical, arboviral, and environmental testing. 

Jim and Maren will go over the techniques used at WPHL to perform Microbial Source Tracking for conservation districts across Wyoming.  

March 10, 2026:  Joseph Cook: Consumptive use and conservation efforts 

Research scientist at the University Wyoming specialized in irrigation science & management. Working on a variety of projects in Wyoming to address local irrigation conflict and understand field and reach level irrigation water balances. 

April 14, 2026: David Ketchum : Improvements in Estimating Agricultural Consumptive Use 

David Ketchum is a research hydrologist at the Montana Climate Office at the University of Montana. David formerly worked as hydrologist at Montana's Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and at the United States Geological Survey. 

Water use for irrigated agriculture is the primary consumptive use in the Western United States, making accurate mapping of irrigation and estimates of its water use critical in water resources management. Here, we present advances in water use estimation through the use of state-of-the-art mapping, meteorological, and crop water modeling technologies. 

May 12, 2026: Nicholas Taylor, Wyoming Stream Stats