The push to drill continued last week, when the BLM opened 148,598 more acres of federal land near Moab to drilling. Quarterly lease sales in that area during the last two years were typically about 75,000 acres.
"It seems reckless," said Bill Hedden, director of the Grand Canyon Trust. Near his home outside Moab, natural gas drilling rigs may soon be visible through Delicate Arch, the wind-hewn bridge of rock at Arches National Park that graces Utah's license plate.
"We Americans have tried to export a lot of our problems off to the boondocks -- but in this case the boondocks is the watershed and the problem is coming right back to us," Hedden said.
According to Spisak, the BLM official in charge of drilling, the Maob sale is the result of "pent up build-up" in the cue of requests the agency is handling. Companies that want to drill on federal land ask the BLM to consider listing that land for a future lease sale. Over the past few years, Spisak said, environmental organizations have challenged some of the listings the BLM approved, delaying their sale. Now the agency is catching up.
"We are required to push them forward," Spisak said. "It's due to pressures of prices and industry, and we are responding to the market demand."
An Unprecedented Demand
No project poses a greater threat to the Colorado River -- or better represents the choice between water and energy -- than mining for oil shale.
In mid November the BLM quietly approved a rule change that paved the way for extracting oil from rock deposits in Colorado and Utah, smack in the heart of the river's watershed. If the vast deposits are mined to their potential -- and it could be a decade before any of the projects go forward -- the reserves could help the United States make a significant leap towards energy independence.
Getting oil from the shale, if researchers can find a reliable way to do it on a large scale, would be astronomically expensive. It might also require more water than the Colorado River can provide.
A recent study for the state of Colorado estimates that if the oil shale industry takes off in northwest Colorado, the region's energy industry will need at least 15 times as much water as it uses now. In 30 years, the report predicts, the energy industry in the upper Colorado River basin would stop the river's entire flow for nearly six weeks if it used the water all at once.
"It would take every bit of water rights that we currently have plus more," said Scott Ruppe, general manager of Uintah Water Conservancy District in northeastern Utah.
Counties across the Western states are apportioned a limited quota of water rights that can be used for industry, farming, or municipal use, he explained. Using Colorado River water for oil shale means less water for urban growth, agriculture and personal use. It means trading fresh fruit and vegetables – not to mention green lawns -- for energy.
"It just comes down to how needy the nation is for energy," he said. "If energy is short then some of the other concerns might get pushed aside."
These stark choices have driven Congress to begin examining the water problem in the absence of leadership from the White House. One of the bills that has been written would, if passed, direct the Interior Department to undertake the kind of comprehensive inventory of the nation's water quality and supply that critics say is missing.
It will be up to the Obama administration, though, to ultimately decide the nation's priorities. The appointment of Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar to head the Interior Department will inject a unique understanding of western water issues into Washington politics. Salazar is a long-time rancher and a former water attorney.
The new administration could temper some of Bush's decisions by limiting mining claims in sensitive areas, refusing to finalize leases sales that haven't been signed, and rigorously enforcing existing environmental regulations. It also could try to reverse some of the rules the Bush administration has issued to speed development, although that will be difficult.
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11 Comments
Add CommentWhy the sudden last minute grants? Is profit being promised to certain individuals in return? What we in the US do not understand, is that potable (drinkable) water is one of the rarest commodities on the planet. Instead of jeopardizing such a needed and valuable resource, shouldn't we be exploring ways to reduce or eliminate the need for polluting fossil fuels?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting (and very discouraging) when "Scientific" American starts publishing opinions in the forum of neutral science. For example, the USGS has already published more than enough observational science (all available online) about the geochemistry of Colorado River water to clearly show, to someone who takes the time and effort to look at it, that ongoing uranium mineral exploration in the Grand Canyon region in no way threatens the water quality of the river, yet this exploration work is summarily and carelessly characterized as "threatening" the river. It is not enough to fear -- fear should instead drive an examination of observations to determine if there are any real reasons to dwell in this fear.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGiven this weakness in reporting in the Grand Canyon region case with which I am familiar, I can only suspect the rest of the article.
This article completely ignores the fact that the colorado river also originally supplied mexico too.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaving traveled down the river many times from Needles to Lake Havasu, drinking its water and enjoying it beauty I, too, wish to see it protected. But slanted reporting such as this inhibits responsible development in the area surrounding the river. Even if man never drilled or mined here, the river would still carry tons of metals, including uranium, downstream every day. Natural erosion is a fact - have you seen the depth of the canyon? Duh? To not capture these materials is also a waste. In addition, the author recklessly uses the word "contaminated" throughout the article, without reference to actual levels or concentrations. The river does not carry 18 megaohm water and never did. The uranium deposits alone could potentially free us from the need to go after the gas or shale. Let's get it out, do it now and do it cleanly. Think people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLdflipper,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Colorado river is already polluted from previous uranium mining. A uranium tailing pile along the river near Moab has been polluting the river for decades!
Ldflipper,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Colorado river is already polluted as the result of previous uranium mining. A uranium tailings pile near Moab has been leaking into the river for decades.
At the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River carries about 4.7 parts per billion uranium year round (slightly higher when the annual sand bar-flushing water releases through the Canyon take place), according to several USGS reports that can be accessed through http://pubs.er.usgs.gov/. This very safe level of uranium is NORMAL for rivers passing through semi-arid regions like the Colorado River and the Rio Grande do (see p. 578 of "Geochemistry of Mineral Exploration" by Rose et al., 1979, for these published values) . The slight elevation in uranium content of the Colorado River and the Rio Grande in comparison to rivers like the Mississippi and Columbia -- which drain much more humid country -- is primarily a function of evaporative concentration of the arid region river water, and is NOT materially caused by purported leakage of uranium from places like the Moab mill reclamation site. The EPA maximum contamination level threshold for uranium in drinking water is 30 ppb uranium. The Colorado River naturally carries about 118,000 pounds of dissolved uranium downstream each year (and most of this is eventually deposited in sediment at the bottom of Lake Mead) -- another 650,000 pounds or so of uranium would have to be annually added to this natural dissolved uranium content of the River to bring the concentration of uranium up to the problematic level of 30 ppb. The only way this could happen is if the climate becomes MUCH more humid, causing strongly increased leaching of the uranium in the region's rocks and soils. In this event, however, surface and ground water discharge into the River would be MUCH higher and would dilute the added uranium content. Point being, the Colorado River is not at risk from man or nature as far as potential 'uranium contamination' is concerned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLdflipper
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for a very informative, and good blog. I always like the facts.
It just occurred to me that the biggest opponents to clean natural gas are also the largest users of gasoline California and New York! LOL
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey SA after reading the comments on this story ya'll kinda got beat up "huh"!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is really ironic that at a time when we are coming up with all kinds of expensive ideas to slow the flow of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, the coal, natural gas, and oil industry are devising ways to pollute the earth & atmosphere even faster. Uranium mining leaves waist that will be dangerous for thousands of years. They cannot wait to dig up every last molecule of coal, ounce of uranium, or drop of oil. No one has yet realized that the safest place for all that carbon and uranium is in the ground. Already there is not enough water in the Colorado to supply all its allocated uses. Mexico has not received its fair share in many years. Yet we keep granting more uses for this scarce resource. This madness will only end when the US is totally unfit for human habitation.
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