Oil shale industry could drain Uintah area water

The head of the agency that administers water in the oil-boom area near Vernal said that water supplies for industrial use could run low if development of oil shale and tar sands accelerates.

Scott Ruppe, general manager of the Uintah Water Conservancy District, said Tuesday that if oil-shale and tar-sands development increases steadily over the next decade to 20 years, then it could potentially out-strip the amount of water that would be available to users in the region. Ruppe was among the attendees at the 2008 Utah Water Summit held Tuesday at the Davis Convention Center in Layton.

He told the Deseret News that the Duchesne and Uintah water districts currently share the rights to 100,000 acre-feet of water from the Green River that can be used for industrial uses like the development of oil shale or tar sands. The districts are allowed to lease the rights to all or part of that allotment to other entities if they so choose, he said.

The agencies have already leased some of those rights to companies involved in oil-shale production. If those companies were to eventually expand their operations and bring in thousands more workers and their families, then the resulting growth would put a strain on the area's water resources, Ruppe said.

"You're looking at doubling or tripling the size of Vernal within about 10 years," he said.

Laura Nelson, vice president of energy and environmental development for Red Leaf Resources Inc., and Gary Aho, vice president of operations for Oil Shale Exploration Co., told the Utah Board of Water Resources in October that Utah has sufficient water for developing the state's portion of oil in the Green River formation.

They said their companies would rely on sources such as the Colorado, Green and White rivers, and possibly use water stored in Flaming Gorge Reservoir, which would require an agreement with the Bureau of Reclamation. Both companies claim that, because of advanced technology, they would require much less than the five to seven barrels of water that in years past was needed to produce a barrel of crude oil. The companies now estimate that they would need no more than three barrels of water per barrel of oil.

Environmental groups have questioned what the lasting footprint of shale and sands development will be and what impact it will have on water quality in the development areas and on air quality for Utah as a whole.

At the conference Tuesday, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he supported the development of oil shale and tar sands as a way to lessen the nation's dependence on imported oil.

"I have no doubt that the abundance of existing technology and continued growth in the global demand for oil will inevitably lead to a major shift toward the development of unconventional oil resources," he said. "We need the relief of the oil available in our own region."

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Contributing: Stephen Speckman

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E-mail: jlee@desnews.com