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Show .Vernal Express, Wednesday, October 4, 2006 CI Uintah County video puts 2006 Legislative Tour "Explore, Enhance and Secure Economic Opportunities" Prior to the Legislative visit, last August, Uintah County and VTV produced a video about the area to show legislators the impacts in Uintah County. "Some were saying that the money being given to the area was being wasted," said Heather Hoyt. "The video was produced to show them what the area is really like." The video is narrated by Dr. Robert Behunin, Utah State University. Behunin: Welcome to the Uintah Basin, to Uintah County and to Vernal. This is a wonderful wonder-ful place. It's diverse in its geological geo-logical structure. We have presi-tine presi-tine mountains. We have beautiful beauti-ful lakes and rivers, and yet it is a place that is very well known, but also somewhat unknown. It's a place that is well understood under-stood by some and through time had been misunderstood by some. Now, Uintah County may not look like much in spots. In fact, a lot of it is covered in this beautiful red and grey rubble rub-ble and in other spots like in the Book Cliffs it is covered in a thick layer of yellow dirt. And in fact, interestingly enough, one very prominent Utah pioneer once wrote back to federal officials offi-cials and said that the only good use of the land in the Uintah Basin was literally to hold the world together. Now we're not going to fault Brigham Young for his assessment, he didn't have the technology at his disposal dis-posal that we do and those early pioneers were exploring for different dif-ferent things. And today in the twenty-first century we have so much at our disposal. So much technology and opportunity that this place is quite an exciting place. Commissioner Mike McKee: This place holds tremendous opportunities. There is a tremendous tremen-dous amount of resources here in Uintah County. For example, if you look at natural gas. This past year there was a little over 16 hundred Approved Permits to Drill in the State of Utah. Over J 200 of those came out of Uintah County. So that amounts to 75 percent of the Approved Permits to Drill came out of Uintah County. It has been estimated esti-mated that in the Green River Formation that there is up to 3 trillion tons of oil shale, and if you look at it another way, there is a Rand Report that was put out and in recoverable oil, in a mid-range, mid-range, there was about 850 billion bil-lion barrels. In that same Rand Report they indicated that would be enough oil to fuel the nation for about 400 years if one-fourth of the consumption came from this area. Behunin: Commissioner Mike McKee is serious when he says the citizens of Uintah County really feel like they are stewards stew-ards of these natural resources, rather than owners. That feeling comes from the fact that they know that these resources can impact not just the local economy econo-my and the citizens here but the entire state and even the nation. So Uintah County, Vernal City feel like they are at the center of a national and even an international interna-tional focus. Here's what former Congressman Jim Hansen has to say about it. Congressman Jim Hansen: Now we are at the point that we can see this great state of Utah on the threshold of being one of the greatest things for America. A lot of that will be the oil shale coming out of the Basin area, the Uintah County area. What I expect to see happen is the technology will get better every year. It's kind of like when the Soviets put the Sputnik up and afterwards we put up a rocket that was only about that big and General Eisenhower, then President Eisenhower, made the statement that this is the Tin Lizzy of the space program. Well we're maybe in the Tin Lizzy stage right now, but we are just going to get better every year. New technology well come liamm Home Furni&hing for Your along. It will improve. It will get better and right there in the Uintah Basin I can see actually thousands of jobs being created. cre-ated. All the infrastructure that people will need, will just be fantastic It gives me a headache thinking about it. As I think of my days on the city council, of talcing care of water and sewer and roads, and schools and sidewalks side-walks and tennis courts and all that type of thing. This is the thing that happened. Yet on the other hand, it is exciting. It is I a,S(oS10i(g Wfl : Ll4 (i) j' 3HH iS. I IT b h Oft 1 V-fcfldes Sr ' - D n n, . 1 n " G,m 7G- I AS U - !-iU East Hwy. 40, Vernal 789-6477 living Lifts vibrant. It adds a lot. It brings a brand new dimension to an area and it will really be a godsend not only for the state of Utah, but for America and for the United States. . Behunin: It is obvious that there is a great deal going on here in Uintah County. And while Congressman Hansen appropriately defined the activity activ-ity as "the new dimension," BLM deputy director Jim Hughes calls it "a new frontier." Jim Hughes, BLM deputy U N DANCE RVn'iwiM"' - ill 'Ant growth in perspective director: This part of Utah, may I use a quant phrase, is sort of the new frontier. And this is where a lot of the action is. And I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the interest in oil shale and oil sand activity activ-ity in this part of Utah. That's a tremendous, a tremendous resource that is just sort of laying lay-ing there in the ground and if we can put our great American know-how together to come up with thetechnology to use to develop that shale and those - ht-f sands, I think you are going to see even greater things for Utah and for the country. The numbers, the numbers are staggering stag-gering of the resource of that oil that is locked into the rocks and is found in the sands. If we can just be smart enough, and America has proved in the past we can be smart enough, to develop the technology to extract that oil, I have been told that Utah is the Saudia Arabia of oil shale. Now, I am not an expert, but that sounds like a lot 3gf.WI.BIIII II Ml IIMMM lllllll II III MMMIM M MM of oil to me. Behunin: That's a lot of oil and wells are exactly what we are dealing with here. Field Office manager Bill Stringer is at the center of all of this well activity. Bill Stringer, BLM Field Office manager: In the past 5-7 5-7 years the Vernal Field Office has gone from approving about a hundred and fifty applications for permit to drill, which is a See Video on C2 |