Fish flopping, dying and causing a stink. Bales of hay floating downstream, and homes and acres of farm and ranchland covered with three-to-four feet of water.

The scene is hard to imagine on a drive southwest of Wheatland this week as farmers complete their harvest. A cornfield is bare except for stalks in the ground, and a harvester is hoisting sugar beets into the back of a truck.

Green fields and stacks of recently harvested hay bales contrast with the brown sagebrush foothills to the west with Laramie Peak in the background.

The crops and green grasses are made possible by the Wheatland Irrigation District. An important part of that system is its 50-foot-high earthen dam that contains Reservoir No. 1 and the canal system that heads north from it linking to area fields.

Wheatland I

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