BOARD02623

• Board Meeting Date: 8/1/1974
• Description: Agenda or Table of Contents, Minutes
• Board Meetings - Doc Type: Meeting

our opinion, the federal studies, are mostly invalid. They don't
make any sense because they do not take into consideration the amount
of water that is already available and which can be and is being
purchased by the various companies.

In our planning, for all practical purposes, we ignore the federal I
studies because to us they don't mean anything. We know how much
water we have uncommitted and we Know the amount of water that is
already decreed. The point is that not only uncommitted water but
also committed water is available to the oil shale industry. Committed
water relates to a question of purchase money. There are ample water
sources at the present time in the Colorado River Basin available to
the oil shale industry. There is a reservoir on the Fryingpan River
called the Ruedi Reservoir, part of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project.
That reservoir has an annual yield of about 80,000 acre-feet. None
of that water has yet been subscribed to by anyone, but is available
for sale today. There is, depending on various estimates, somewhere
around 50,000 acre-feet of water available in Green Mountain Reservoir
if that reservoir is operated in strict compliance with Senate Docu-
ment 80. That water is also available for sale. So we have some-
where around 130,000 acre-feet of water which can be made available
immediately to the oil shale industry on a subscription basis under
contract with the federal government. There is a very substantial
amount of water which is adequate for a potential industry in the
Grand Valley area, leaving out the Piceance Basin problems.

When you talk about a commercial plant, I assume you are talking about
a 50 thousand barrel per day operation.

Mr. Kilburn: That is our commercial site, 50 thousand barrels with
66,000 tons of shale mined a day.

Mr. Sparks: You mentioned Green Mountain. Has Colony considered,
or do you think it is necessary to purchase water either from Green
Mountain or Ruedi Reservoir for any contemplated future operation in
the Grand Valley area?

Mr. Kilburn: We are planning on Green Mountain Reservoir water. We
hope to use Green Mountain water and our figures would be about
7,000 acre-feet per year. It is a small part. I would imagine that
it is available for other users. The only other company seriously
planning in the Grand Valley area is Union. PARAHO is working
towards some kind of commercial development at Anvil Point. And
then there are the in-situ processes that aren't yet known. There
undoubtedly could be other things coming along. But as far as Union,
I will let them speak for themselves as to what their plans are.

Mr. Sparks: Many prophets of doom have been crying about the lack
of available water for the oil shale industry. We are perplexed by
that type of thinking. It appears to us that we have more than
enough water available today from uncommitted sources alone to take
care of a major oil shale industry in the Grand Valley. When you

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