Laserfiche WebLink
<br />N <br />W <br />~ <br />,.... <br /> <br />the conclusion as to the availability of water for a 1.5 million bbl/day <br />EET industry simply assumes that che water rights held by EETs are or <br />will bi junior to the water rights held by all other projected consumptive <br />users. Since water can be purchased from willing sellers of agricultural <br />rights, it can be said, from a purely legal point of view, that there is <br />essentially no constraint on the amount of water that could be obtained <br />by EET developments. <br /> <br />Availability of Ground Water for Emer~in~'EnergyTecfinolo~ies <br /> <br />Very little use is presently made of the 'Upper Basin's ground water <br />resources. With relatively few exceptions ,(most notably for uranium min- <br />ing in the New Mexico portion of the San Juan River Basin), projected <br />non-EET uses are not expected to ,draw upon ground water over the next 20 <br />years. Thus, ground water could, depending upon hydrogeologic and eco- <br />nomic factors, be a potentially significant source of supply for EET <br />developments, particularly in the three areas discussed below. <br /> <br />Piceance Creek Structural Basin, Colorado. The Piceance Creek struc- <br />tural baain is approximately coterminous with the surface drainage area <br />of Yellow and Piceance creeks in'the White River Basin (Colorado) and <br />Parachute Creek in the Upper Colorado River Main Stem Basin (Colorado). <br />This geologic unit lies in the heart of the richest oil shale deposits <br />found in the Upper Basin. Indeed, the Piceance Creek structural basin <br />consists of two aquifers, both of which are under artesian conditions. <br /> <br />Estimates of average annual discharge from and recharge to the <br />aquifer system (the system is presently in equilibrium) range from approx- <br />imately 24,000 to 29,000 acre-feet. The volume of ground water stored in <br />the Piceance Creek structural basin has been estiIDated to be as small as <br />2.5 maf and as large as 25 maf. An unknown portion of the ground water <br />in storage would be physically recoverable and, in turn, only a fraction <br />of that amount is likely to be economically recoverable. <br /> <br />The structural basin's water quality is generally poor, although <br />it varies from place to place and from one geologic member to another. <br />Total dissolved solids concentrations range from more than 30,000 milli- <br />grams per liter (mg/l) to as low as 1,000 mg/l. Water of such quality, <br /> <br />1. It was assumed throughout the analyses that EET water' rights were <br />junior to the rights of all other projected consumptive users. This <br />assumption is probably not correct in all instances. <br /> <br />1-6 <br />