Coyote Gulch

Monday, August 11, 2008

Whitewater park for Palisade?

From The Grand Junction Free Press: "Palisade officials will consider Tuesday the town's direction on a whitewater park after receiving additional correspondence from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The federal agency again seeks additional information, said Palisade Town Administrator Tim Sarmo. 'They're still not satisfied with the design.'[...]

"Last week's correspondence from the federal agency requested additional modeling based on a new design the town gave the Fish & Wildlife Service a month ago. No one from that federal agency was available for comment Friday."

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"colorado water"
6:11:20 PM

U.S. #1 in wind energy
Congratulations to everyone involved in making the U.S. #1 in wind power. Here's a report from The Environmental News Network. From the article:

US wind capacity is expected to increase 45% in 2008 although Congress' failure to extend the production tax credit (PTC) for the renewable energy industry threatens to derail further development, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).

Total US installed wind power capacity now stands at 19,549MW, up 2,726MW from the end of 2007, making the US the world leader in wind electricity generation, according to the AWEA's second quarter 2008 market report. Germany has installed generating capacity of about 23,000MW, but the US produces more electricity because of stronger winds, the AWEA said.
"cc"
5:56:10 PM

Energy policy: Oil Shale

Here's a look at oil shale exploration and production in Utah, from The Deseret News (via Red Orbit). A Utah company EnShale claims they can produce the kerogen for $30 a barrel. They plan to use traditional mining technologies, underground, then heat the rock and return the processed rock underground. From the article:

Some firms like Orem-based EnShale Inc. and its parent company, Bullion Monarch Mining, are confident they've got the environmental part down pat as they continue to develop a patent-pending technology to extract oil from shale. "We're trying to be very, very green -- as green as we can be," said R. Don Morris, president of Bullion Monarch...

People like Hatch and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, tout energy independence and lower gas prices as reasons for going after shale and sands, even though the impact at the pump wouldn't be felt until sometime after larger-scale commercial production could get going in about 2016. But will swaths of the Beehive State end up looking like parts of Alberta and, if so, for how long?[...]

There are still too many unanswered questions, he said, about what the lasting footprint of shale and sands development will be and what impact it will have on water quality in the affected areas and air quality for Utah as a whole. Utah Division of Air Quality director Cheryl Heying has been watching what's happening with research and development projects for shale and sands in Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. "We want to make sure there's not a race to the bottom," Heying said. That is, the race to Utah's oil reserves that, in some areas, can actually be seen sitting on the surface. She describes the areas of eastern Utah where the reserves are located as clean. "And we want to keep it clean," Heying added...

Franson said his company has a patent-pending method of oil extraction for shale that uses far less water -- he's talking mere gallons -- than the three barrels of water per one barrel of oil experts have predicted would be needed during the heating process to separate the oil from rock. For proprietary reasons, he isn't specific about the technology being developed by EnShale, but he said his company can produce crude from shale at a cost of $30 a barrel. A technology some like, which EnShale is not using, involves heating the oil while it's in the ground and extracting it that way. Rather, the ore his company will be mining will come from underground mines, with only a little surface mining required during research and development. The process involves heating the shale to about 1,000 degrees, using a "closed-loop" system that recycles water. The spent shale after processing could go back underground or in huge trenches left behind by gilsonite mining operations, he said. And air quality has been a priority. "We've been very careful to minimize emissions," Franson said. He quotes Hatch's claims that greenhouse gas emissions from shale operations is small compared to production of some biofuels, including ethanol.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"cc"
6:45:05 AM

USGS scrutinizing Roaring Fork watershed study

Here's an update on the efforts to complete a study of the Roaring Fork watershed, from The Aspen Daily News. From the article:

An encyclopedic study of the Roaring Fork River watershed is undergoing a final review by the U.S. Geological Survey, which specialize in water quality, and is now scheduled to be released in mid-September. So far, data in the "State of the Roaring Fork Watershed" report shows that local water quality is "pretty good," according to Mark Fuller, executive director of the Ruedi Water and Power Authority, which is sponsoring the report. (The Roaring Fork Conservancy has served as the lead consultant in the effort).

The report divides the watershed into nine sub-watersheds. There are four sub-watersheds along the Roaring Fork, the others include Snowmass/Capitol Creek, Maroon/Castle Creek, the Fryingpan River, the Crystal River and Cattle Creek...

There are, however, several other factors that affect the health of the watershed.

One is the amount of water that is diverted across the Continental Divide to Colorado's East Slope through transmountain diversions. On average, 37 percent of the water from the upper Roaring Fork River sub-watershed and 41 percent of the Fryingpan River sub-watershed are diverted through tunnels to the other side...

Another issue is water rights that are now held and used locally that could be bought for use downstream along the Colorado River. "If a local landowner decides that he doesn't want to irrigate his fields and decides to sell his water rights to someone else, we could watch the water flow by but would likely lose the amenity of green fields and attractive landscapes that the water supports here right now," Fuller said. "We are all aware of the energy development that is going on downvalley (in the Colorado River basin) and the rampant growth from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and those activities pose a threat to Roaring Fork watershed water supplies."[...]

Another challenge facing the Roaring Fork watershed is residential development along the banks of local rivers and streams. When houses are built and manicured lawns installed down to the edge of a river or stream, there is a loss of the native riparian vegetation, which creates habitat for wildlife and helps keep river water clean...

The watershed report attempts to list the variety of setback regulations in the region, and Fuller said the next phase of the effort will be to work with local governments to strengthen those regulations...

Fuller said the USGS is carefully reviewing the water quality information, which is new information, "and they are triple-checking the data" before signing off on the report. The USGS has invested a lot in water quality studies around Colorado, and Fuller said it made sense to subcontract with the federal agency to prepare the water quality section of the watershed report as they were in the midst of a water quality study when the report was commissioned.

More coverage from The Aspen Daily News.

Due out in mid-September, the "State of the Roaring Fork Watershed" report contains a number of interesting facts about the watershed that shapes life in the local region...

The Roaring Fork River watershed includes all the rivers and streams that eventually flow into the 70-mile-long Roaring Fork River, which in turn flows into the Colorado River in Glenwood Springs.

The headwaters of the Roaring Fork River are in Independence Lake at an altitude of 12,490 feet, above the upper Lost Man trailhead near Independence Pass. The Roaring Fork River is the second largest tributary of the Colorado River in the state, yielding an average of almost 1 million acre feet of water, or 306 billion gallons, per year. An acre foot is the amount of water required to cover one acre of ground to a depth of one foot. The watershed, comprised of 1,962 miles of rivers and streams, encompasses 1,451 square miles (about the size of Rhode Island) and includes most of Pitkin County and parts of Eagle, Garfield and Gunnison counties. The highest point in the watershed is 14,265-foot Castle Peak about 15 miles south of Aspen. The lowest point is at 5,800 feet at the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado rivers in Glenwood Springs.

The draft report notes that "76 percent of the watershed is federally managed, but public land within 150 feet of the streams and rivers decreases that number to 32 percent, which means that the majority of the watershed's riparian corridor (is) in private or local government ownership." Generally, about 75 percent of the land in the watershed is public and 25 percent is private.

The watershed can be divided logically into nine sub-watersheds, including four on the Roaring Fork River itself. The Fryingpan sub-watershed has the most stream miles -- 279 -- and the Crystal River sub-watershed is the largest, at 325 square miles. The major rivers and streams in the watershed include, in addition to the Roaring Fork River: Maroon and Castle creeks, Snowmass and Capitol creeks, the Fryingpan River, the Crystal River and Cattle Creek. Other significant streams include Lincoln Creek, Hunter Creek, Brush Creek, Woody Creek, Four Mile Creek and Coal Creek.

More Coyote Gulch coverage here.
"colorado water"
6:25:23 AM

e-mail John: