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:,,' n r-I'r II '-D (ILv!:r lit 9-13-73 Western Resources Series IX, No. 37 Oil Shale--Part III-lead SEP 1 4 1973 From: Helene C. Monberg 123-Sixth Street southeast Washington, D.C., 20003 Area Code 202-545-1350-1 Wrap-up r.nl.") COI,""" , story .. '-.. -vo..:1) Washington--An uncommitted 341,000 acre-feet of Colorado River wa- ter in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming is available for oil shale and other development, according to the final environmental impact statement (EIS) .on oil shale recently issued by the Interior Department. But applications for water in Colorado and utah oil shale country total 1,175.728 acre-feet--three times that available, according to the Bureau of Reclamation--so it is evident that water w~ll be a limiting factor on oil shale development. At the request of the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior de- tailed the amount of water that might be available for oil shale develop. ment in the final EIS on Interior's proposed oil shale test lease plan. The oil shale EIS contains the best estimates on present and future de- pletions of Colorado River water in the three states currently available. In Colorado it figured there would be 167,000 acre-feet of water available for oil shale development. Of this total, 155,000 acre-feet would 9omedfrom reservoirs in place o~ authorized, and "12,000 acre-feet uncomro~tte water out or from/the state's share of Upper Basin.~mter in the Colorado River. The Bureau of Reclamation has estimated Colorado's total share of Upper Ba- sin water at 2,976,000 acre~feet out of 5.8 million acre-feet for the en- tire upper Basin. The EIS estimated that 77,000 acre-feet of water for oil shale development could come from the authorized but unbuilt West Divide project in ~lestern Colorado: 45,000 acre-feet from the Green Moun- tain reservoir of the Colorado=Big-Thompson project, and 33,000 acre- feet from the Ruedi reservoir of the Fryingpan-Arkansas project. Applications for water in Colorado oil shale country on file and 019l conditionally decreed total 1,103,348 acre-feet of water, according to the oil shale EIS. The break down: 829,027 acre-feet in conditional wa- ter decrees and 274,319 in filings. Eight companies, Union Oil, Cities Service, Chevron Oil, Getty Oil and Colony Development Operation (made up of Atlantic Richfield Co., ~e Oil Shale Corp., Sohio Petroleum Co. and Cleveland Cliffs Mining Co.) have conditional decrees dqtinq back (more-ncm) I II I I i i !