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Show Wesiern Resources WRAP-UP Water for energy, Energy impact aid R, Helrne C. Monberg hintrton-The first site-specific aS 3v under a 1974 energy law completed on the propos-ifSication propos-ifSication plant to be built in ' ,tudy which is still in draft form, tes there is no constraint to the ; ( 128OO acre-feet of water out of 't fckakawea, a major reservoir on UBouri River, to operate the first 'ercial synthetic gas plant made L lignite coal. 250 million cubic feet of synthetic Lv would come from a $1.5 billion Nation plant to be built in Mercer P v western North Dakota. The would serve primarily the Illinois-STchigaD-Wisconsin market. The Swl Energy Regulatory Commis- m Nov. 15, 1979, approved the sale synthetic gas from the proposed f!at m interstate commerce. 'i month' earlier the Department of vct (DOE) requested the Water purees Council (WRC) to conduct lie study assessing the water Liability for the Great Plains ification project in North Dakota, as Lied under Section 13 (c) of the 1974 federal Energy Research and Develop- cent Act. That provision of the law re- jufes such a study to be made to ; liiure water availability "as a precon-' precon-' ion of federal assistance" to an appli- for federal assistance. The American Natural Resources Co., a ; (roup of five pipeline companies back-jig back-jig the Great Plains gasification pro- : pi, wants federal loan guarantees for le construction of the plant. As the law has been on the statute noksforsix years, why has it taken so ong to start getting water studies mov- -ij under it? Western Resources Wrap-.p Wrap-.p (WRW) asked WRC's Assistant ; rector Lewis D. Walker in an inter-i inter-i on March 7. There was very little interest in the .lies until the president announced new syn-fuels program last year : acknowledges that it does not .jaw about the politics of water or the lechanics of water assessments. Some I DOE's people were hoping such jdies would not be necessary. But in ( lie October DOE worked out an agree-r. agree-r. lent with the council to do the Mercer i. ounty study, and by mid December r e council had worked out an agree-tt: agree-tt: ent with the Missouri River Basin imraission'''" to ' conduct the -water 1( fessment for the project and to have i draft report in to the council by the yf ist of March. a It did, and the council is now review-i review-i Jit before it is put in final form. Not t' my substantive changes will be made HI, Walker told WRW, before the final sport is submitted to DOE. No loan larantee application has been receiv-I receiv-I yet from the Mercer County project ickers, a DOE spokesman told WRW March 10, primarily because DOE already yet to receive applications. y Wwe will be this spring or summer," nsaid. M that time, Walker predicted the de-' de-' mnd for the council to do site-specific iter studies will increase, perhaps Piratically. The Mercer County study f notes that it is first to be corn-Wed corn-Wed under the 1974 act, "and it is an-'Wled an-'Wled that similar assessments will "conducted as other non-nuclear facilities are built." The w County study was done under act by a Chicago engineering firm iy 85,000. Jtie same firm had already done a w of studies of the Missouri River H hence could collect the data lively quickly. Site-specific water-gy water-gy studies in the future are like-cost like-cost in the neighborhood of $75,0OO per study, Douglas Peet, of the WRC assessment divi- IIT WRW on March As not J than $i miiiion is authorized for " studies annually under the 1974 j't 'og may develop for such and DOE will have to put a on the studies to be completed .. FINDINGS IN v7E COUNTY STUDY Vtoa County studv indicated 1 " 8as'fication plant, to be built in : C with the first unit of 125 'b i feet Projted to be on the " er sn , ' 1S we" sited insofar as 3ie ,PP y 1S cncerned. "Depletion -e l5 ; 'ouri River streamflow by ' suuDtJ HQT e"feet of water P year ernl project and allcated ifaj',,' operations will not Wn deP'ete the present am,, ?, 0f about 17 mi"'on acre-nually," acre-nually," the study found. jtl.tlon or conflict will occur W een energy-development or C?1' a"d i rigation or t;t of' a the relatively modest rjy'st! flePletion for energy, and bleats tilng considered a higher use lconvl coal-gasification and I eintolon Projects will not soon I :rllser:1espread competition with 'VJ ifistr Principal other uses in- aesihel h "d WlldUfe- recreation r 'r b rand downstream deple-"ses- tl n and oth consump-the consump-the study said. 'Unit two-phased gasification plant will deplete the Missouri River streamflow by about 12,800 acre-feet a year of water, or an average daily usage of about 11.4 million gallons. Electric power requirements for the gasification plant will be generated by the 880,000 kilowatt Antelope Valley powerplant under construction on an adjacent site by Basin Electric Power Cooperative of Bismarck, N. Dak. Water required by the powerplant will be about 11,200 acre-feet a year. The North Dakota State Water Commission Com-mission in 1974 granted a conditional water right permit for the project of 17,000 acre-feet annually, on condition that the right be perfected by actual use within a period of eight years. It has also issued a water right permit to basin to divert 19,000 acre-feet of water annually out of the Missiouri River for use at its Antelope Valley power plant. Water requirements for project-support project-support functions include 2,300 acre feet a year of the project's allotted use of the Basin power plant and about 270 acre-feet acre-feet a year of mining usage. About 9.4 million tons of coal annually will be used us-ed by the gasification plant, and it will come from the Beulah-Hazen mine located adjacent to and east of the "coal-gas" plant. The mining process will require about 400,000 gallons of water a day for dust control. It is projected pro-jected the water will come from a waste stream or excess water in the mine pits. Community water-supply demands of about 400,000 million gallons a day are attributed to the project. Most of the people who will come in to work on the project are expected to live in three communities just south of the mine "coal-gas" plant-powerplant complex: Beulah, Hazen and Zap. The additional population is expected to total 5,125 at the height of the construction period and to level off at 2,730 after the two-phase two-phase plant is in operation. Their water supply will come from both the Missouri River and ground water. ISSUES POSED BY PROJECT Altho the study indicates there is plenty of high quality water available for the Mercer County coal gasification project, it says the project does pose several issues. They Are: ":A determination of allocations and tenns of sales from mainstem reservoirs reser-voirs among riparian and downstream states and the federal government. 'Codification of the allocation of rights and adjudication procedures to accommodate current understanding of hydrologic relationships and development develop-ment complexities. It would not be wise to hold up the Mercer County project until these issues are resolved finally, as it is only a 40-year project and it is likely to take many years to resolve the issues, the study said. On the issue of primacy, the study noted "state laws derived under the ap-propriative ap-propriative doctrine mostly lack provisions provi-sions for instream uses, conjunctive use of ground-and surface-water systems, transfers of permits or rights, and for control of aquifer depletion. Federal court actions and environmental initiatives in-itiatives have increased areas for actual ac-tual or potential conflict. Recommendations for codification (of water laws) and other reforms" proposed by the National Water Commission Com-mission in 1973 "have not yet resulted in substantive progress" on the issue of primacy. On the issue of allocations, the study said "ownership by state and federal entities of water in or from the mainstem reservoirs" on the Missouri River "has not been allocated." The Water and Power Recources Service (old Bureau of Reclamation) has been making the contracts for sales of water under the authority of the 1939 Reclamation Act, and sales have been made to recover costs as spelled out in an agreement between W&PRS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who operate the reservoirs. On the issue of procedural change, this should not affect the project, the study said, because the strong precedents of prior rights highest beneficial use of water should preserve the project's water right. ENERGY IMPACT AREA AID HEARINGS Washington (Special) Chairman John Glenn, D-Ohio, of the Senate Subcommittee Sub-committee on Energy and Federal Services Ser-vices said here on March 12 he planned to go to make-up as soon as the record is complete on S 1699, on which he concluded con-cluded two days of hearings (March 11 and 12) on expanding impact aid to communities with energy developments. The Subcommittee record will be complete in about two weeks, according to staff. "We want to vote this bill up or down," Glenn told Western Resources Wrap-up. "It has been before Congress two or three years already." After the bill is marked up before the Glenn Subcommittee, Sub-committee, it still must pass muster in mark-up before the parent Senate Government Affairs Committee. Then that Committee version of the bill must be reconciled with the bill reported out of the Senate Energy Committee on Dec. 20. As there are no similar bills in the House, the Senate bill sponsors plan to attach energy impact area aid as a rider to other legislation to bring it to conference committee. Its chances under such a procedure are poor at best, but its chances would be nil if it had to be routed thru three House Committeesthe Com-mitteesthe fate of similar legislation in the last Congress. The bill (S1699) on which Glenn held hearings would amend the 1978 Coal Conversion Act (PL 95-620) primarily by adding synthetic fuels projects to coal and uranium development projects for purposes of making aid available to . affected communities. It would authorize $400 million a year in direct financial assistance in the form of grants and loans and loan guarantees of up to $1.5 million over a five-year period to provide funds for planning, construction of public facilities and services ser-vices and land acquisition for new housing hous-ing sites. Glenn said repeatedly during the two-day hearing that he questioned the need to provide grants in "front-load" aid to such communities until tax revenues from area energy developments begin to come in. Impact aid to be provided should be in the form of loans and, in a few instances, in-stances, loan guarantees, Glenn stated. Witnesses from the Office of Technology Assessment, the Congressional Congress-ional Budget Office and Kutak Rock and Huie, a legal firm that has worked on borrowing programs for states and local governments, testified grants are not needed. But Sen Gary Hart, D-Colo., and James Thornton representing the Department of Agriculture testified in favor of both loans and grants. The U.S. Department of Agriculture predicts this year's farm export volume should approach a record 150 million metric tons. That's up from 137 million last year. |