State officials listen to concerns about proposed tar sands mining project

SALT LAKE CITY — Prompted by concerns lodged by environmental groups, the state Division of Oil and Mining held an informal hearing Tuesday to air questions on impacts that could result from a tar sands mining project straddling the borders of Uintah and Grand counties.

Proposed by Canada-based Earth Energy Resources, the operation would take place on 213 acres and involve the open-pit mining of tar sands to extract 2,000 barrels of bitumen per day over a seven-year period.

Although several of the hearing participants questioned the financial viability of the project, even terming it "experimental," Earth Energy Resources Vice President Barclay Cuthbert said the venture would not be pursued if dollars weren't going to follow.

"We're not undertaking this project to go bankrupt," Cuthbert said. "The economics of this project stand on their own."

Timothy DeChristopher, an environmental activist best known for deliberately monkey-wrenching a controversial oil and gas lease auction in December 2008, said he failed to understand why the state would allow the project to move forward given the unknowns.

"I can't understand why the state would allow an unprecedented, experimental project to happen in the Colorado River watershed," DeChristopher said. "This project is a bridge to nowhere."

Groups that include Living Rivers and Peaceful Uprising worry that the operation could contaminate tributaries that feed into the Colorado River and result in dust pollution because of the heavy truck traffic — all for oil that they say generates more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional crude oil.

Aside from those concerns, Living Rivers conservation director John Weisheit said the water taken from an aquifer necessary in the mining process could deplete the aquifer. Weisheit stressed that the value of the Tavaputs Plateau is to "leave it as it is."

"It is inappropriate to do this in the Colorado Plateau," he said. "It cannot go forward."

Carla Knoop, an environmental consultant hired by Earth Energy Resources, said the appropriate controls and safeguards have been implemented in the mining operation's design to catch any runoff in a containment system that includes berms and ditches. The operation, Knoop said, is 25 miles from Willow Creek and 38 miles from the Green River. The area has no "live" water in its vicinity — only a drainage system that has no water in it except during or immediately after a rainstorm, she said.