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• Board Meeting Date: 7/11/2007
• Description: WSP Section - Intrastate Water Planning - Oil Shale Water Use
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Memo

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42 Oil Shale Development in the United States: Prospects and Policy Issues

of salts and other minerals once extraction operations are terminated and ground-
water is allowed to reenter the site and contact the spent shale.
Opportunities for Action. While it appears highly unlikely that water quality
risk is a "show-stopper" problem, there is a critical need to obtain better information
on the nature and'long-term environmental fate of leachate from spent shale and the
water quality impacts of in-situ retorting. For spe:nt shale produced by surface
retorting, research is required to determine whether recent methods used to reclaim
spent shale piles are applicable to the amount of spent shale anticipated from
commercial-size retorting plants. Accordingly, once one or more firms announce
plans to go forward with initial commercial-scale surface retorting, a comprehensive
spent-shale assessment program, including mathematical modeling, laboratory tests,
and field monitoring, should be developed and implemented so that the issue of
spent shale management can be resolved before the production growth phase begins.
For in-situ retorting, confident prediction of the: transport and fate of salts and
other substances will only be resolved through extensive mathematical modeling of
the subsurface environment combined with comprehensive hydrological monitoring.
This research agenda should commence at the nexlt level of scale-up (i.e., at the
roughly 1,000 barrel per day demonstration operation). Otherwise, sufficient data
will not be available to inform decisions about whether to proceed with initial com-
mercial operations.
In both cases, a full understanding of risks and appropriate mitigation and con-
trol measures will probably not be available within six to eight years after a research
program commences. Consequently, only a partial knowledge base may be available
when industry decisionmakers are ready to build the initial round of commercial
plants. This information shortfall provides an impetus to taking a measured approach
to commercial oil shale development, as opposed to simultaneous permitting of
numerous first-generation commercial operations.
Finally, to ensure that the above water quality research and assessment programs
(as well as research agendas focused on land use and ecosystems and on air quality)
are properly formulated and to foster public confidence in the process and eventual
findings, consideration should be given to establishing an independent scientific
advisory and oversight board and public engagement strategy.

Socioeconomic Impacts
Challenges. The oil shale-bearing lands and the surrounding regions currently
are sparsely populated, with an average of only seven inhabitants per square mile.H
Large-scale oil shale development will stimulate a significant increase in the popula-

R According to rhe U.S. Census Bureau, rhe popularions of rhe rwo counties containing rhe Piceance and Uinta
Basins-Rio Blanco County. Colorado. and Uintah County. Urah-were 5,986 and 25,224, respectively, in
2000 (U.S. Census Bureau. Colorado. 2003; Utah, 2003).