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'L IS lOc Imber . like f the 11Olo i 1-----7."):1: _ c1 "\ . 1 ~.r~ u\ . Water, Disposal Of Spent Shale~/ti Interests Pollution Commission \ I By PAUL H.-\!HAWAY Sentint'1 Slaff Writer DENVER - Waler and spent shale disposal seemed to imere::.t the Colo- rado Air Pollution Control Commission more than air pollution did Thursday when briefed .on steps bein~ taken by CoJrmy Development operation to pro- ft'Ct the environmcll~ at the pilot oil shale plant 12 miles north of Grand Valley. Jack Rogt'rs. Don :\tcSparran and Frank Friedman of Atlantic Rich- field's Colony Indu.'>trial Plannin~ Sec- tion explained what is being done at the experimental plant at the requE'st of the pollution board's enforcement section. The pilot plant. now shut down for air pollution equipment modi. fications. was not in violation of stale standards. howe\'er. Their talk was similar to one givcn at Grand JtUlction two weeks ago, in which Rogers cited a gro.....ing deficit of petroleum fuels for the nation, oil shale's potential in offsetting some of the deficit and some of the emiron. mental problems to be met. ~lcSparran said his company. through Ihe Thorne Ecological In. stitute. is conducting an intensi\.e envl. ronmental Im.entol)' of lhe Parachute Creek area where thi' semi......orks plant is localed and where ;Jny com- mercial plant would be built by ARCO. The test planl. handling tloout 1.000 IOns of oil shale a day, is temativli'ly 10 be shut down sometime early this summer. A cft'Clsion from ARea is ex- pected wilhin a year - September is the most freql.:cntly mentioned date, although no date was gh"en Thursday - for a decision on wht-iher to go wilh a commercial plant. Work has already begun on eval- uating the mechanical, economic and environmental impacts of oil shale de- velopment :'-IcSparran said. He stressed Ihat the present plant is ex. perimC'ntal only. '.1';0 decision has been made to go with a commercial plant," :\IcSparran said. What it .:!11 will boil down to is envi- ronmental impact and the cost of miti- gating it, he said, bast'd on the price of crude oil five years from now. "We will ha\.e to prove 10 ourselves - and to everyone else _ that we can meel h.'nvironmentalJ sandards in or- der to go ahead," JIcSparran said. "The thing that really controls ii, is whether the price of crude Will-go up enough to make it competitive." One of the problems adding to the cost is disposal of spent shale _ there is more material - a black. powder}' residue - after retorting lhan before. St'veraJ questions were asked about ARCo's'tentalive plans to put the spent shale in l\liddJe Parachute Creek Canyon, compact it and revege- lall' it with native or other com- patible grasses and shrubs. The three primary questions were. ""':hy not put it back in the mine?" "Will it be a blov..ing du~t problem.!" and "Can it be used for anything?" ~lcSparran said there are several environmental. mechanical and ec0- nomic reasons ....hy the spent shale is not likely to be put back underground. He said, it wnuld take about n\'C years' production at 66,000 tons of rock a day 10 create 3 big enough cavity under- ~round to st3rt putting the .spent shale back in without interft'rlOg with minim:!:. Because of its tendancy to swell dur- ing processing, Ihere would still be more spt"nl shale than t here would be a place to put it. It could not. be compacted in a minI". as on IhC' sur- face, and ground waler could leach through It. causing heavy salt con- tamination of uoch'rground walPr. Un- der ARCo's plans, the surface-com- pacted shale residue is nearly im. pervious to water, amI any slight sft'page would be caught in catch ba. sins and used in processing of more shale. There would be no blOWing dust, partially because of a layer of soil and vegetation on top of Ihe spent shale 2~ if ./