WSP10212

• File Number: 8200.760
• Description: Yampa River General
• State: CO
• Basin: Yampa/White
• Water Division: 6
• Date: 9/7/1976
• Author: USGS
• Title: Coal-Resource Development Alternatives - Residuals Management - and Impacts on the Water Resources of the Yampa River Basin - Colorado and Wyoming - September 7 1976
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Report/Study

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plants and coal-conversion facil ities. Currently, applicable water-qual-
ity-control legislation stipulates both in-stream and effluent standards.
Aided by operational water-quality models, compliance with existing stand-
ards can be tested against critical present and projected conditions of.
loadings, treatment levels, temperature, and streamflow. Also, the physi-
cal and economic .impl ications of meeting existing or assumed standards may
be evaluated.

For purposes of model calibration, selected data on physical vari-
ables, biological oxygen demand, several nutrient species, and indicators
of sanitary qual ity were co) lected over a 24-hour period during low-flow
conditions in late September 1975. Samples were collected for point-dis~
charge effluents, all flowing tributaries, and at 15 intervals along the
mainstem Yampa River between Steamboat Springs and Hayden (fig. 1).
Through this analysis, regional water-resources managers should be able
to evaluate the treatment technologies and associated facil ities costs
needed to comply with existing or assumed stream-quality standards.

SUMMARY

This paper has described several of the forms of coal-resource devel-
opment anticipated by the year 1990 for the Yampa River basin. Planners
and managers are concerned with the direct and indirect water-resources
implications of economic growth as.sociated with this development and with
efficient use of the available water. Through residuals-management'analy-
sis and environmental-model ing investigations, the Yampa River basin as-
sessment will provide a technical and objective basis for evaluating the
alternatives among water use, changes in environmental quality, and the
societal costs and benefits of such development.

Evaluation of residuals-generation impacts and residuals-treatment
alternatives should consider environmental standards, the available costs
and technologies of residuals. modification, and penalties associated with
noncompl iance with standards. Interpretation and revision of applicable
air-qual ity and water-quality standards need to be coordinated more close-
ly with land use, zoning, and rehabilitation regulations. Alternative
plans for development need to be based on real istic standards of environ-
mental quality, in terms of util izing assimilative capacities of the envi-
ronment, allowing current technologies of treatment to be appl ied with the
associated costs being assigned to the proper beneficiaries, and realizing
that the concept of zero discharge of all forms of residuals is. unattain-
able. Pol icy alternatives between costs and levels of treatment need to
be specified. Plant-process and environmental model ing activities of the
Yampa River basin assessment (Steele, James, Bauer, and others, 1976b) and
of the regional residuals-management analysis (I. C. James and others,
written cammun., 1976) should provide a more objective analysis of the
impl ications of the policy decisions to be made by regional planners and
managers.

REFERENCES CITED

American Chemical Society, 1976, How to make coal burn cleaner: Environ-
mental Sci. Technology, v. 10, no. 1, p. 16-17.

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