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<br />flfl'l57\l <br /> <br />or railroad. A railroad line extends from Craig through Steamboat Springs <br />(fig. 1) to transport coal eastward to markets elsewhere in Colorado and. <br />in"the United States. Other than during the construction of railroad beds <br />and highways, residuals discharges to the environment due to coal trans" <br />port consist primarily of exhaust gases and wornout equipment parts. <br /> <br />A significant role for coal"s'lurry pipelines has been predicted in <br />transporting western coal to en'ergy markets (Freudenthal and others, 1974). <br />A slurry pipeline has been proposed to transport coal from northwestern <br />Colorado to a power plant near Houston, Tex. Later modifications of this <br />proposal include transporting the coal by railroad from northwestern Colo- <br />rado to Walsenburg, Colo., about 400 kilometres southeast of Craig, and <br />transporting the coal from Walsenburg to Texas by slurrypipel ine. Esti- <br />mates for water requirements for a slurry pipel ine are about 1 tonne of <br />water for each tonne of coal transported. Most slurry-pipel ine operations <br />require preparation of coal for the slurry at the initial point of the <br />pipeline ,and then processing at the end of the pipel ine. After pipeline <br />construction, relative environmental impacts of slurry pipelines are <br />small; however, water requirements need to be taken into consideration. <br />In the Yampa'River basin assessment, effects of consumptive-water use of <br />a hypothetical slurry pipel ine transportin!j 9.1 mi 11 ion tonnes of coal <br />annually from the basin will be evaluated (table 1). <br /> <br />REGIONAL IMPACTS <br /> <br />This paper has briefly outlined a number of aspects of coal-resource <br />development. These specifically have been in terms of types and amounts <br />of discharged residuals, and consumptive-water-use estimates for the var- <br />ious levels of coal mining and the coal-utilization alternatives in the <br />Yampa River basin. A major objective of the Yampa River basin assessment <br />is to eva I uate env i ronmenta I consequences of these impac.ts on a reg iena 1 <br />basis, aided by the use of appropriate modeling and semiquantative analy- <br />sis techniques. The several components of the basin assessment which are <br />currently underway are described by Steele, James, Bauer, and others <br />(1976b). Highl ights of several of the regional investigations in the <br />assessment are described below. <br /> <br />Soc ioeconomic I.mpacts <br /> <br />By relating residuals-generation rates from secondary sectors to in- <br />cremental changes in a regional economic-growth indicator known as total <br />gross output, rough estimites of residuals generated by socioeconomic sec" <br />tors can be made. Such a technique has been developed and appl ied to the <br />Upper Colorado River Basin by researchers at the University of Colorado <br />(Udis and others, 1973). The Yampa River basin is a subbasin unit of the <br />Upper Colorado River Basin, and subsequent studies conducted at the Uni- <br />versity of Colorado have modified residuals coefficients to smaller areal <br />units. Care needs to be taken in developing coefficients for small sub- <br />regions, and collaborative efforts along this line are envisioned between <br />the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Colorado. Examples of <br />specific areas of concern in the Yampa River basin include increased de- <br />mands on water supplies, waste-water treatment, and recreational resources <br /> <br />, . <br /> <br />10 <br />