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<br />002402 <br /> <br />Environmental controls will influence the. disposition and implementation <br />of energy-resource development alternatives and related activities. On the <br />Federal level, relevant legislation to the stud~ includes the 1970 Amendments <br />to t~e Clean AIr Act (PL 91-604), the National Environmental Pol icy Act of <br />1969 (PL 90-190), the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 <br />(PL 92-500) and the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (PL 93-523). <br /> <br />In addition, submittal of leasing applications, subsequent proposed min- <br />ing plans, and added transportation linkages must be evaluated in terms of <br />requirements found in the National Environmental Pol icy Act. Review and con- <br />solidation of the requirements fer cost development from Federal leases cur- <br />rently are underway by a combined task force of representatives of the U.S. <br />Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Geological Survey. The draft environ- <br />mental impact statement became available in January 1976 (U.S. Bureau of Land <br />Management and U.S. Geological Survey, written commun., 1976). Land-use and <br />strip-mining legislation in Congress is pending. State environmental-control <br />regulations generally override Federal laws when they are more stringent. <br />Laws dictating al locations and rights of disposition and use of water within <br />the Colorado River Basin also must be considered (Weatherford and Jacoby, <br />1975). Any conflicting or ill-defined regulatory roles of State and Federal <br />agencies must be indicated. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Related Socioeconomic Aspects <br /> <br />(Work task I-C) <br /> <br />The following socioeconomic factors will be considered in the first phase <br />of the project: population, publ ic faci 1 ities and recreational uses, urban <br />centers and transportation corridors, and population shifts with related eco- <br />nomic growth. Much of this material will be gathered and evaluated in collab- <br />oration with staff members of the U.S. Geological Survey's systems"analysis <br />group in Reston, Va. Demographic projections will be gathered from several <br />sources .including universities and local planning reports and will be analyzed <br />in terms of current basin plans. Relevant work has been done at the Univer- <br />sity of Colorado for the entire Upper Colorado River Basin by Udis, Howe, and <br />Kreider (1973). Shifts in employment will be viewed in 1 ieu of the number <br />of people that will be living in the basin. Much of the material here will <br />relate to existing land-ownership patterns and to ~istributions of mineral- <br />rights o\vnership among Federal, State, and private groups (see work task I-A). <br />Compi lation and review of socioeconomic factors are useful to assess the sev- <br />eral secondary impacts of energy-resource development in the basin, particu- <br />. larly the human-related components, for example, new construction of housing, <br />schools and related services, public-water supplies and wastewater-treatment <br />facil ities, and increased demands for recreational uses of resources. <br /> <br />Development of the energy and water resources of the Yampa River.basin <br />will result in significant increases in population. The dominant increases in <br />,employment opportunities in the basin are expected to occur in areas of energy- <br />resource extraction, conversion, util ization, and transportation, and in ~reas <br />of related human services. The estimated basin population of 18,000 in 1975 <br />is expected to double or perhaps triple within the next 15 years. These esti- <br />mates are based principally on projected population growth figures for Moffat <br />and Routt Counties (U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey,. <br /> <br />6 <br />