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Show Western Resources Water for energy By HeleneC.Monberg ffashington-Water for energy! That's the cry nich the House and late Appropriations Subcommittees Eiergy and Water Development are uring these days as the justification , foe federal government's funding of , water projects. rarv Hart told us to talk about I for energy," Bill Price of Mar-1 Mar-1 Colo, told Western Resources 'r'ap-up ' (WRW) as a 30-man 'legation from Southwestern Colorado id Northwestern New Mexico ap-,ared ap-,ared before both subcommittees on Xch 25 on behalf of the Animas-sPlata Animas-sPlata project in both states. ce in the 1981 budget as a new ,rt the Animas-LaPlata lost its new-art' new-art' status when the administration jcided not to recommend any new ater project starts in the 1981 budget ibmitted to Congress in January. Hart a Colorado Senator. The project ould be located in the San Juan Basin New Mexico and Colorado, where a gasification projects would use 000 acre-feet of water annually if 'gj were built, according to projec-jns projec-jns in a water-for-energy study cently submitted to the Water sources Council (WRC). Two water-for-energy studies for the pper Colorado River Basin and the pper Missouri River Basin indicate a nsiderable amount of storage water juld be needed for synthetic fuel ivelopment in both Basins. But, inerally speaking, the effects would 1 minimal on downstream water ers, according to the draft studies ibmitted in recent months to the RC. Both are being rewritten now in ulform; the Missouri River study is heduled to be published in the deral Register in mid-April and the pper Colorado - River study along lout mid-May, a WRC source told RW on March 26. WHAT FINDINGS SHOW-UPPER SHOW-UPPER MISSOURI The major finding in the Missouri ver Basin study, which was conducted i the Missouri River Basin Com-ission Com-ission under contract, was that major ater supply systems would be needed pipe water from the large dams on e Upper Missouri to the sites of nthetic fuels developments. Cost of ich systems "would range from one ilf to one billion dollars," it timated. Availability of water is no oMemtwith the development of coal feiication and liquefaction plants in learea in the 1980-2000 time period, it und. "Approximately one million acre-et acre-et of industrial water is available in deral reservoirs within the (Upper lissouri) Basin for meeting synfuel ivelopment needs," it said. Syn-fuel larits could require between 250,000-MO 250,000-MO acre-feet of water annually, spending on the amount of develop-ient, develop-ient, it estimated. Us estimates were based on the ssibility that 1.1 to 1.7 million barrels !l equivalent might be daily syn-fuel itput from the vast coal and lignite iposits in the Upper Missouri states of totana, North Dakota and Wyoming, toal gasification plant is planned for lercer County, N. Dak. II found syn-fuel developments in the would not significantly affect Her quality or fishery habitat; but re would be considerable impact on lull communities, particularly in the Muel plant construction stage, and I land area, as between 10,000-30,000 "s of land might be distrubed by the instruction of the syn-fuel plants and "watersypply systems. water supply systems would ' to be built to "minimize conflicts uistream uses and-or changes in cultural land use resulting from Ration of irrigated water rights for "fuel development. Particularly ve in this regard are the Powder tongue River Basins in eastern wtana and Wyoming," the study turally, as such studies will, the m Missouri water-for-energy area ssment on syn-fuel development fended that more studies be also recommended that the 7 a Psible syn-fuel industry be the fght "0W int0 the plans used disii agencies in operating h ""greservoirs in the Yellowstone lis,, . m and downstream on the Hi River Basin" from the i! f the Yeowstone River in min down to Sioux City, Iowa. PPER COLORADO The-, "FINDINGS l "jost important conclusion of the Colorado River Basin water-for- a I n which was done fey the ISoJ? DePartment of Natural sthat7k Under contract for WRC, claIrHnK0t''bankrUpt''aS 1st 3o . llaimed by many over the insist " uPPr Colorado a e 'Colorado, New Mexico, ljn" "yoking) could meet the huivT? 8 15 million-barrels-of-sntlient-Per-day-syn-fuel in-1 in-1 aier ni!nod 198-2. assuming "to an f S ran6ed from 200,000- 'leet a year, the study said. ,,1"5)rtiLn0t "significantly reduce s in t( ,,r Priected consumptive CltejJasin" the study untied this conclusion with the usual caveats about the law of the river, various state laws and the interstate in-terstate compacts. And it assumed that water for syn-fuel development could be purchased from existing federal reservoirs, could and would be built, particularly on the White River Basin in Colorado and Utah. The study considered water availability for two types of syn-fuel developments, oil shale in the Green River Formation in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and coal gasification, particularly on the New Mexico side of the San Juan Basin. J. William McDonald, the study manager of the Upper Basin study and now director of the Colorado Water. Conservation Board, did not want to handle the downstream impacts of syn-fuel syn-fuel developments in the Upper Basin. So the WRC contracted with the Water and Power Resource Service (Bureau of Reclamation) to do a study on the impacts of such developments in the Lower Basin states of Arizona, Nevada and California. The impacts study, still in draft form, generally concludes that any real impacts on the Lower Colorado area would be minimal for the study period 1980-2000. But they could become more pronouned after that, particularly in the Central Arizona Project (CAP) service area in central Arizona. This is primarily due to CAP'S junior water right. The impacts study considered mainly economic losses from reduction of energy generated at the power plants at the Hoover-Parker -Davis dam complex on the Lower Colorado River, as well as reductions in agricultural related income in-come and salinity impacts. They ranged from $1,308,000 in 1985 to $17,423,000 in year 2000 under accelerated ac-celerated energy developments with high depletion of the river. It did not consider that the Lower Basin, particularly par-ticularly the Southern California market, would undoubtedly benefit from additional syn-fuel developments in the Upper Basin. "Yes, there would be a tradeoff." The major impacts on the Lower Basin are less likely to be economic, the impact study showed, than visual or esthetic. In periods of extreme low flows on the river due to drought, white-water white-water boating might be eliminated and exposure of shorelines along the river would cause aquatic plant and animal that.material to decay and smell. "This impact would not imperil health or sanitation, but it would be offensive in smell for a time," it said. Upper Basin syn-fuel developments would not cause these conditions, the report said. But they might aggravate them during recurring droughts in the Upper Basin, it indicated. ODD TWIST A study which the Univeristy of Oklahoma at Norman is completing for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the impacts of water used for energy developments in the West took a peculiar twist. It included what a respected source called "some very non-offensive language updating very old economics on the cost of importing water from the Pacific Northwest to the Colorado River drainage. This raised some hackles of some Northwestern Senators and has led to the introduction of a bill by Senator Church that would prevent all agents of the federal government from examining diversion schemes," WRW was informed. Such bills are popular with Northwestern Nor-thwestern politicians and voters during election years, but they aren't likely to get very far as individual bills. Of course, such studies could be prevented by amending broader based bills. Sen. Henry M. Jackson, D-Wash., put a ban on studying such diversions from the Northwest in the 1968 Colorado River Basin Act; it was effective for 10 years. Sen. Frank Church, D-Idaho, introduced in-troduced his study-ban bill (S 2237) on Jan. 30, and Rep. Robert B. Duncan, D-Ore., D-Ore., introduced a companion bill (HR 6572) on Feb. 22. |