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Show Pact signed for Wyoming water on Chevron fertilizer plant Wyoming Governor Ed. Herschler and Chevron Chemical Co. have signed a contract allowing the company to buy up to 22,500 acre-feet of water per year for use in a proposed fertilizer plant near Rock Springs. Chevron will pay an initial price of $37.50 per acre-foot, and the price will escalate according to inflation. At the initial price, Wyoming would receive $843,750 a year. Chevron Chemical president Jim Kent gave Wyoming an initial payment of $98,630. "This agreement represents a big step for southwest Wyoming," Herschler Her-schler said. "Wyoming water will be used in Wyoming to create new jobs and new opportunities for our state." Chevron said the plant, which could be completed as early as 1985, initially would create 350 new jobs, and expansions ex-pansions could result in a total of 700 new jobs. The water will come from the Ron-tenelle Ron-tenelle Reservoir. The contract also permits saline water from the Big Sandy River to be substituted for part of the Fontenelle water if the state constructs the Big Sandy project. Herschler said Chevron's willingness to use saline water from the Big Sandy proves the state and industry can work together to solve some of the environmental en-vironmental problems facing the state. "This agreement culminates nearly 2'! years of work to find an industrial market for the saline waters of the Big Sandy," Herschler said. "This will also allow the state to market additional water from Fontenelle without aggravating the salinity problem for other potential water users." The plant also would provide a market for sulfer from Chevron USA's Carter Creek natural gas treatment plant near Evanston, Herschler said. Herschler said the Wyoming Legislature now needs to approve Chevron's request to export 3,000 acre-feet acre-feet of water from the Green River to Utah. The water would be used in a slurry pipeline that would move ground phosphate rock from Chevron Resources Co.'s Vernal, Utah, mine to the plant. The Senate Agriculture Committee voted uninimously to recommend approval of the slurry-water request. Chevron would use the water as a backup if Utah does not approve its request to use water resulting from a tailing process at its Utah phosphate plant in the slurry line. Kent said a final decision to build the plant has not been made yet. "This decision to construct depends upon obtaining the necessary permits and upon the results of ongoing marketing and economic studies," Kent said. "However, acquiring an assured water supply for the plant is a major step in the project's development." develop-ment." Phosphate and ammonium phosphate fertilizers manufactured at the Rock Springs plant would be marketed to farms in the West and Midwest. |