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~ (X) 00 -J Water rights have also been acquired. by purchase from existing agri- cultural users, although the water. involved is still.devoted to irrigation. Options to purchase additional irrigated agricultural rights were also noted in a few ins,tances. With one exception, all companies .noted that the agd,- cultural rights that they hold are for water. which is presently applied to lands where future oil shale development activities (and associated community growth) might occur. The bulk of such rights are for diversions in the Roan Creek and Parachute Creek .drainages (both of which are tribu- taries .to the Colorado River) and in the Piceance Creek Basin (a tributary of the White River). The rights .not appurtenant to oil shale land are on the lower Roaring Fork River (a. tributary of the. Colorado River). In all instances, the companies reported that they have no present intentions of acquiring additional rights from existing irrigated agriculture. ~:.:~.~> ....~.. '.- Little information was available from the companies about the historic consumptive use of these agricultural rights~ However, even if all of the water presently consumed by irrigated agriculture On Roan, Parachute, and Piceance creeks was to be transferred to oil shale uses in the future, it , I is estimated that this would amount to only IO,OOO to 20,000 acre-feet per year, By way of comparison, present average annual depletions by irrigated agriculture throughout Colorado's portion of the Upper Basin are 1.2 maf. AvailabilitY of Other Wacer Rights for Emerging Energy Technologies Development. In addition to the water rights already held by oil shale companies, more rights could be obtained in a number of ways. Most obvious, of course, is the original appropriation of further rights. In light of the ~2; fact that rivers in Colorado are already heavily appropriated, this approach may not be particularly attractive. However, this does not mean that all, or even a large portion, of the existing conditional rights will ever be perfected and put to use. Thus, new conditional decrees might still be of some use in developing reliable water supplies. The second source of additional water rights is, further purchases of water from existing users. Given the economics of water. use, .it is clear that any such transfers would involve irrigated. agriculture rights, since the marginal productivity of water in energy uses is 10 to 100 times as large as it is in agricultural uses. As noted above, however, oil companies with holdings in Colorado have no present intentions of proceeding in this way. A third alternative for the acquisition of additional water rights is the purchase, in Colorado, of the conditional decrees hald by others. Many, many such rights exist for all purposes. They frequently date back to the 1940s and 1950s and would therefore be relatively senior. Indeed, many of these rights may have been obtained by their owners in anticipation of oil shale development. Ifhether such rights would in fact be offered for sale is unknown, however. Alternatively, the water right owner could retain the right, build the facilities required to perfect the right, and then sell water to oil shale companies on a contract basis. ....:.... .. ".:., .~,~. . xl