DENVER—Federal officials are giving the public another month to comment on its proposal to open nearly 2 million acres of federal land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming to commercial oil shale development.
The Bureau of Land Management’s original deadline was Thursday.
Earlier this week, Colorado water managers, cities and counties and conservationists asked the BLM for more time to review the draft environmental analysis of the impacts of oil shale development in western Colorado, eastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., sought a 60-day extension and called the extra 30 days “a step in the right direction.” Salazar wrote in a letter Monday to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, who oversees the BLM, that he’s concerned the federal government is moving before the full potential impacts are known and without complete cooperation from the affected states.
Last year, Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal asked the Interior Department for an extra 120 days to evaluate the federal plan before the draft economic impact statement was released. The states got a month.
Salazar and Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., won approval of a measure that prohibits spending federal money on handling commercial oil shale leases in this year’s budget.
Udall said Thursday that he would have preferred a longer extension, but the 30 days will help.
“The issue of oil shale leasing and development has major implications to the economy, environment and quality of life for western Colorado,” Udall said.
Oil shale underlying the region is thought to contain 1 trillion to 1.8 trillion barrels, or three times the proven reserves of Saudi Arabia. Of that, roughly 800 billion barrels are considered recoverable.
The trick is extracting the oil from the rock, something that’s been tried on and off for nearly a century. The shale, or kerogen, is a precursor that wasn’t buried deeply enough or naturally processed long enough to complete the transformation to oil.
Turning the shale to oil requires heating it above ground after mining, or in the ground, a process called in situ or “in place.”
Even Shell Frontier Oil & Gas, which has been testing ways to tap the oil in western Colorado since the 1990s, believes commercial production is years off.
Shell is one of three companies awarded oil shale research and development leases on federal land in Colorado. A lease was also granted in Utah.
There are questions about the water that will be needed to produce oil shale. Eight water providers along Colorado’s Front Range, including Denver Water, wrote in their request for more time to review the 1,400-page document by the BLM that they’re concerned the development would drain up to 15 percent of western Colorado’s water supply.
Denver Water and other Front Range utilities draw some of their supply from the western part of the state though tunnels under the Continental Divide.
Ritter wrote in his comments to the BLM Thursday that he doesn’t support the plans for commercial leases. He supports an option identified but not endorsed by the BLM that would continue the research and development leases, which could be expanded to commercial development over about 224,000 acres.
Ritter told the BLM the draft proposal doesn’t adequately address the potential impacts on water and air quality, water supplies, human health or western Colorado’s economy. The document “is woefully inadequate in assessing the needs and impacts of an industrial complex significantly greater than the infrastructure that exists today,” he added.
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On the Net:
Oil Shale and Tar Sands Leasing Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement:
