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Show Westfem Resources Saline watercoal pipeline gy Hle Mnbor Vernal Eipreas ttMnjIon Correspondent -hington-The Bureau of Nation has teamed up with the Mining Company of Denver to -dup solving the salinity pro- S5? Colorado River, ivir method of doing so: the much-Ued much-Ued "aquatrain" project which, ihe first time, would provide an in- f ,l use for highly saline Colorado water. It would use 12.000 acre-Erf acre-Erf salty water from the mainstem fthe Colorado River in Western Col- Jo to move up to 20 million tons of I -r year from Western Colorado fcuthern Utah to Southern Califor- "L ,1 would be used by local Les-San Diego Gas & Electric Co. L expressed an interest in the pro-l-or the would be exported to the Vif East. He Bureau and Grace estimate this jiue atercoal pipeline would sjove from the Colorado River up to jfjOO tons of salt annually or about 10 jjrtentof its salt load. The Lower Col-i".4 Col-i".4 River Basin states of California, jiM and Nevada have long been secerned about the rise of salinity in je Loner Basin. He trend at Imperial Dam in Calif orate or-ate been going up since 1949, and j salt load entering Lake Mead along je Nevada-Arizona border totals 10 iai tons a year. He Bureau estimates if control over slity in the River is not effectively demented, and soon, the damages to rested farmland, in particular, could se to $237 million by the year 2000. j:;er quality standards set by the En-CTuental En-CTuental Protection Agency would & be violated without installing ilsty controls on the river. 3 We must act now to save the river," '.: ja William L. Armstrong, R-Colo., sad at a hearing on his bill (S 2202) j; iJiae22before the Senate Water and ; rser Subcommittee to speed up the i, sriy control program in the Col-r Col-r nil River. Coe of the strategies in the Arm-;i Arm-;i iTEj bill is to authorize projects "to ; iiiinstrate saline water use :l iciogy and to benefically use and :;- sose of saline and brackish waters of stlorado River Basin in joint ven-3s ven-3s with current and future industrial lat users." That means primarily aface "aquatrain" project. WATER RIGHTS ISSUE sciiar legislation was introduced in House on April 6 by Rep. Ray .E ixsvsek, D-Colo., as principal spon-r spon-r Kogovsek told Western Resources I-, Wt (TOW) on June 24 that he U! 3i the hearings on his bill (HR 6097) nil be held in the House Water and il: '"WResources Subcommittee in late , i fflaer or early fall in Western Col-tin. Col-tin. "I'd like to get some inputs from state and the local people about the Kogovsek said. rnajor consideration relative to the t( f!w Pipeline proposal is the use of '; of Colorado River water , wated to Colorado to move coal to oniia, although there is a provision 1 Colorado Constitution at the pre- J.e which bars export of water 'fpeliie use. Several Western states have passed legislation designed to prevent rat they regard as their water al pipelines, and the issue will settled ultimately in the U.S. vaie Court. Chairman James A. R-Idaho, of the Senate ifff Committee on June 8 issued a j statement to the effect that all ' pipelinesmust conform strict-jot) strict-jot) L slate water law. Both Kogovsek )P m p' Brwn. R-Colo., who ist l;Ilrei)resent Western Colorado in "km Present tinie, have ex-- ex-- ! COncern about the Grace t tK sTproposa1' although the salinity ' nonlyauthorizesastudy. ,J1 It522 hearing softpedaled the ' ACt?Vroblems relative to the 4 PrPosal. Myron B. ft 'Cf e,ngineer for e Colorado fi W2 "mia. notified the . Colnr Lation on Feb- 9 tha' ' ForunT Basin Salinity Con-J0"- 27. 1981 has asked a Z V StUdy tte Grace Proles' Pro-les' ed if Forura on Feb. 2 had tei a !nted the Bureau t0 ti 't"offers the potential of ilw r50"11" Percent of the total jj-frma the River." 'Cki?0, Commissioner Robert 'atT o 101(1 Senate panel on . Uwantsthe Forum, CbVVeVen Colrado River "Citv .., headquartered in Salt aterri . address issues" of 11 cocrir ' as Proposal must in"Butrance state water f(comqUestion wil1 ultimately "UmlT0 10 willingness of i states-Colorado, feof ,KUtah and Wyoming -to JterriJJ1? exPrt of water from faani rsuch PTe. several W Wlththe Problem have ofw! !e Engineer S. E.. ttdS i the only one of tjl, Proposal to date, tarnation sources have V , ';'' Salint Wattr Addtd Pulvrlitd Coal from h. I Mm Sourer . . '5 Pkatic Bog Capsules XS-J 30" Dta. x 15' Long Transport j- a To Mtof Coast tOr Cool Export CONCEPTUAL 38" CAPSULE PIPELINE - BUREAU OF Reclamation artist's concept of "Aquatrain" pipeline moving coal wrapped in plastic bags floating in saline Colorado River water from Western Colorado and Southern Utah to Southern California for use by local utilities and for export ex-port of the Far East. Drawing from U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Interior Dept., June 1982. told WRW. Several pipeline proposals are now before Congress. John N. Thurman, vice president and Washington representative for W. R. Grace Co., told WRW on June 28 Grace does not believe any of the other proposals would have any effect on the Grace proposal, which is still in the study stage. Grace would like to have the salinity bill authorize the pipeline. Ira E. McKeever, Jr., president of Western Mining Operations for Grace, told the Senate panel that Grace would like to have authorization of a study and demonstration to refer "to both full-scale full-scale saline water use projects as well as one-time, short-duration and small-scale small-scale efforts oriented toward proving that a particular saline water use technology can work." This would not be acceptable to the Environmental Policy Center, Dr. Brent Blackwelder of the Center told the Senate Subcommittee. Subcom-mittee. "While we have no objection to a study of this (Grace) proposed saline slurry (pipeline), we do object to authorizing gigantic projects such as this in the absence of final feasibility and impact reports. S 2202 should therefore require that explicit Congressional Congres-sional authorization be obtained for those joint ventures whose cost exceeds $25 million," Blackwelder testified. COST OF SALINITY CONTROL Costs of salinity control have driven the Bureau of Reclamation to look at industrial in-dustrial uses of water in the Colorado River Basin in lieu of attempts to control con-trol natural sources, which have not been particularly successful. Of the four salinity control units authorized in the 1974 Colorado River Basin Salinity Control Act (PL 93-320), Crystal Geyser in Utah has been shelved and Las Vegas Wash in Nevada is being restudied. In looking for more areas for salinity control in the River as chief of the Colorado Col-orado River Water Quality Office for the Bureau of Reclamation in Denver, Michael J. Clinton has been responsible for a series of reports on Colorado River clean-up. These studies have shown that salinity control, mainly in the Upper Colorado River Basin, could cost from $4 billion to $10 billion, with Uncle Sam expected to foot most of the bill. So Clinton was very much interested when he learned that Grace wanted to export coal to the West Coast and overseas from coal deposits in Colorado and Utah via pipeline. And McKeever of Grace was interested in the pipeline concept because of transportation costs. It now costs more than $28 a ton to move Western Colorado coal to Southern California, according to McKeever. Moving it by pipeline would be in the neighborhood of $19 a ton, he figures. The cost of the pipeline would not be cheap; it's estimated at $2 billion, McKeever told the Senate Subcommittee Subcommit-tee on June 22. That's assuming that the "government shares part of the cost, because some very saline Colorado River water would be used to transport - the coal, he said. McKeever stressed that industrial partners will be needed in the effort. Clinton figures the cost of such a pipeline, while expensive, is a bargain as compared to desalting costs. The Bureau is figuring its costs of the pipeline and local use and disposal of saline water industrially at $1.3 billion, or about one-fourth of what it would cost to desalt water. So the two men-Clinton and McKeever-have become allies in the pipeline effort, one representing the Bureau and the other private industry. Assistant Reclamation Commissioner - William C. Klostermeyer told WRW on June 29 Clinton has been designated the acting project manager for developing working agreements with non-fejderal interests i.e., industry on the pipeline venture. "Mike will be reporting to Cliff Barrett Bar-rett in Salt Lake City," Klostermeyer stated. Clifford I. Barrett is the regional director of the Bureau of Reclamation Salt Lake City office, which is taking the lead on salinity control con-trol in the Colorado River Basin. Mean while, McKeever has just returned from a trip to the Far East to sound out export prospects for the Grace pipeline venture. The Grace proposal involves the construction con-struction of a 30-36 inch pipeline from Northwestern Colorado to the Pacific Southwest along the California coast, a distance of about 1,000 miles. Coal mined min-ed in Colorado would feed the pipeline with up to 15-20 million tons of coal per year, or some of the coal might come from Southern Utah. About 12,000 acre-feet of fresh water from the Yampa River would be used to transport coal from Craig to Rifle, Colo, where it would be exchanged for highly saline water from the mainstem of the Colorado in Westcentral Colorado in the vicinity of Glenwood Spr-ingsDotsero Spr-ingsDotsero Springs containing up to 14,000 milligrams of salt per liter of water. The highly saline water would move the coal in plastic bags, so that the coal would not become contaminated by the saline water. The Bureau has programmed $22,054,000 for salinity control in the Colorado River in 1983 (as compared to $14,579,558 for the current 1982 fiscal year), of which $50,000 has been clearly identified for studying the industrial uses of saline water, including the Grace pipeline. Additional money may be programmed for this effort, the Bureau's budget experts told WRW on June 29. Meanwhile, the Bureau of Reclamation Reclama-tion Salt Lake City office on June 22 put out a notice to the Colorado River a staggering total of 2,633,000 tons of salt added on an annual average from 16 saline sources. The Bureau noted the study includes the Grace "aquatrain" project and other federal-non-federal projects where saline water could be used. Those interested should reply to the Bureau within 30 days, the Bureau stated. Among the other possible joint ventures ven-tures include a plan by Chevron USA to build a mineral pipeline from Vernal, Utah, to Rock Springs, Wyo., for the production of fertilizer and proposal by the Solar Institute at Golden, Colo., to use saline Colorado River water to grow microalgae for such diverse uses as an industrial chemical "oil," food and a vitamin supplement. The study should uncover many uses for saline water. |