Laserfiche WebLink
<br />. ';" 3' ) <br />bUll '1" <br /> <br />out of the region for conversion elsewhere. At this writing, controversy <br />surrounds the alternative methods of exporting the unconverted coal from <br />the region to demand centers elsewhere. One alternative is the construc- <br />tion of slurry pipelines. Another alternative is rail transportation which <br />could be employed for the entire distance to the market areas or could be <br />combined with transshipment by barge to utilize the low-cost waterway system <br />on the Missouri River below Sioux City, Iowa (Figure 8). Water use is of <br />considerable consequence in both the case of coal slurry pipelines and of <br />navigation on the Missouri River system, <br />Only one slurry pipeline is presently in use in the United States: <br />the Black Mesa pipeline in Arizona. A slurry pipeline formerly in use in <br />Ohio has been deactivated. For slurry transportation, coal and water are <br />combined in approximately equal quantities. At this rate the water required <br />would amount to 600 to 800 acre feet per million tons of coal transported. <br />If coal exports were at a level of 110 million tons, all of which was <br />shipped by slurry pipeline, some 77,000 acre feet of water would be re- <br />quired (NGPRP, 1975).11 Assuming that none of this water were returned <br />(there have been discussions of the possibility of return flow pipelines), <br />this would represent less than one percent of current water consumption in <br />the region. With return flows, of course, consumptive use would be faT <br />smaller. <br /> <br />Waterway transportation of Northern Great Plains coal would pre- <br />sent no new requirements for water or for management of the mainstem <br />Missouri River reservoir system, unless the shipping season on the river <br />were to be extended. If such an extension were to occur, for coal trans- <br />portation or for any other reason, the availability of water from the <br />Missouri mainstem reservoirs would be somewhat more limited for other pur- <br />poses as water would be needed to maintain a certain streamflow over a <br />longer period. However, there would be no physical diminution of water <br />supplies above the reservoir system. <br /> <br />19 <br /> <br />.....,: <br />" <br /> <br />. ......... :..... <br /> <br />... :...':... ...'..... <br />'". .-.- - . ~~.: . <br />\:.:: :-.~;:::~ ....: ..~:~::/~.:;.t-:. ..... <br />", .." :'..". <br />.... <br />....;:: <br /> <br />... ',"." <br />