Oil-Shale Projects in Utah to Slurp Up Agricultural Water Rights

By Arthur Raymond, Deseret News

The virtual non-existence of available water rights in the bone-dry southern reaches of Utah will not hobble possible oil shale mining and nuclear power development projects, according to testimony delivered by industry insiders and state officials to a legislative interim committee Wednesday.

Utah state engineer Kent Jones told the committee that the state’s allocation of water rights in the Uintah Basin is essentially maxed out, and either effort would require obtaining water rights in control of someone else.

“Any use of water in the Colorado River Basin will have to be done based on existing rights,” Jones said.

Utah Division of Water Resources director Dennis Strong said that issue would not place a constraint on potential large-volume water uses, like oil shale processing or nuclear power generation, since they could obtain the rights from current holders in the agriculture business.

“We make those choices all the time,” Strong said. “We’ve made them on the Wasatch Front a lot. Instead of growing crops … we grow houses.”

But University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher, awaiting trial for disrupting a Bureau of Land Management oil and gas lease auction last winter, countered in his testimony that the fight over existing rights will wreak havoc on rural communities and small agri-business owners who will be outgunned by deep-pocketed energy developers.

The shift in water control from agriculture to industry is a move, DeChristopher said, that would abandon the interests of rural communities.

“What we’re looking at doing is sacrificing our local agriculture here in Utah,” DeChristopher said. “I would challenge anyone on this committee to make that statement … that Utah should be taking away water rights from our farmers and giving them to oil companies.”

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Source:  Deseret News

Oil Companies Buying Up Billions of Gallons in Water Rights in the Parched American West

In preparation for future oil shale mining projects near the Rocky Mountains, six oil companies have gained rights to billions of gallons of water in the American West, potentially jeopardizing water supplies throughout the region, according to a new report by Western Resource Advocates [pdf], an environmental group. It is still preliminary to speculate on the implications of the findings, but many are concerned that if the companies put their rights to use, water will be shifted away from agriculture and community use.

Using public records, the report examines more than 200 water rights held by six energy companies, including Shell and ExxonMobil, which, it is estimated, are collectively entitled to divert at least 6.5 billion gallons of water from rivers in western Colorado, as well as almost 2 million acre-feet of water from the state’s reservoirs, which is enough to supply the Denver metro area for six years. Shale oil production is a water-intensive process: up to five barrels of water are consumed for every barrel of oil produced. This means that projects producing 1.55 million barrels of oil per day would require 378,000 acre-feet of water each year, compared to the Denver metro area’s consumption, which is less than 300,000 acre feet. Should oil shale production hit full stride in the next 15 to 20 years – something the White House under President George W. Bush tried to accelerate by opening up 2 million acres controlled by the Bureau of Land Management to leasing and approving royalty rates and leasing rules – there will be a major political battle over water rights [Colorado Independent].

Extracting oil from shale is still an experimental process, facing major technological, environmental and regulatory hurdles, and is considerably more expensive than conventional drilling [Wall Street Journal], and the report has reignited an ongoing public debate over what the impacts of oil shale mining will be on nearby communities and the environment. Last September, the mayors of 11 mountain communities in Colorado wrote a joint letter to publicly express concern about “significant impacts on our community infrastructure, environment, and quality of life” from the development of oil shale…. “There has also been little evaluation of the impact these technologies and processes will have on local communities or the regional air and water resources” [Environment News Service], they wrote.

Shell spokesman Tracy Boyd defended the industry’s strategy of preemptively buying up water rights, saying, “The rights that we have, for the most part, are conditional. The water has to be there legally and physically” [AP], adding that, “We’re picking up properties as they become available or look strategic” [Wall Street Journal]. He tried to minimize cause for concern by saying that Shell expects not to need all that water for another 15 years, by which time it may have developed oil extraction methods that require less water.

Colorado law allows river water to be used, at no cost, by any entity that can show the water will be put to a “beneficial” use. Extracting oil fits into that category, as does, for example, growing alfalfa, providing household drinking water and making snow at ski resorts. Oil companies can get water rights in two ways…. For a minimal filing fee, the companies have claimed scores of “junior” rights that allow them to draw water from a particular river after other users have satisfied their needs. The companies have also purchased dozens of “senior” rights from old-time farming families; those rights give them priority access to water, even in dry years [Wall Street Journal].

Source:  Discover Magazine Blogs

Courts to settle water war between metro Atlanta, Florida and Alabama

ATLANTA- Actions in two courtrooms soon could determine metro Atlanta’s ability to control its future water supply as well as its hold over the water it already has. The outcome is as uncertain as it is important.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide this fall whether to take a petition filed by Georgia, which could validate an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assuring this region’s access to water for 20 years.

In a separate case, U.S. District Court Judge Paul A. Magnuson in Florida wants by early next year to hear arguments over whether metro Atlanta has the right to use Lake Lanier, which sits on the Chattahoochee River, as its primary water supply. The right has been assumed over the years: More than 3 million people get their drinking water from the federal reservoir or the Chattahoochee just below it.

But its legal basis is contested by Alabama and Florida.

Attorneys for all three states say they can’t predict the outcome, nor can they say exactly what defeat could mean to this region. Certainly, additional reservoirs are already coming. Aggressive water conservation may also be required, even after the current drought ends.

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Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

For more information on water conservation, visit www.nuprana.com