Peaceful Uprising and Living Rivers in Moab have managed to get an additional Hearing with the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining about a tar sand permit recently granted in Utah (the first). This Hearing is next Tuesday, July 27, 1:30 pm in room 1010 in the DNR building, 1594 West North Temple, SLC. John Weisheit, the Colorado River Keeper, will testify, since this tar sands development is high up in the Colorado and Green River Watershed, and there are concerns about contamination of the water. But I think it would be good if others would weigh in as well.
An excellent book with lots of info about the tar sands development in Alberta, CA is Andrew Nikiforuk's "Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent". http://www.amazon.com/Tar-Sands-Continent-Revised-Updated/dp/1553655559/ I found the book more interesting and compelling than the H2Oil movie. It vividly describes the strength of the investment boom around tar sands in Alberta. Witnesses say it is like a tsunami, it is the biggest energy investment anywhere. One of the big issues in Alberta are the tailing ponds leaking into the rivers. The in situ production method to be used in Utah does not generate tailing ponds but it still uses a lot of water which will be steamed off into the atmosphere. Apparently it relies on aquifers for its water supply. It also uses lots of natural gas. Here are some things which can be learned from the book: Alberta never had a development plan for the tar sand resources, they just opened the floodgates for investments, never turned down a project. As a result, everybody else profits but Alberta. Especially there was never a comprehensive accounting of the water. They are issuing permits without knowing if there will be enough water. The organization which pretends they are monitoring the environmental effect on the water, RAMP, finds no environmental effects because they are doing very shoddy science. Industry is promising to rehabilitate the land afterwards although nobody knows how and it is probably impossible. There is no accounting for global warming, which will greatly diminish water supply in the future. For the in situ projects, the actual use of water and energy usually turned out to be much bigger than industry projection. The book does not say this, but this was said at the meetings of Peaceful Uprising about this: The chemicals used together with the water to wash out the bitumen in situ are proprietary and we don't know what they are. Where will the crude oil be refined? Only some refineries are able to handle the extra heavy crude, but the book says the only investment in refineries at present is for these extra heavy oils. If you know about any of these things and you can make it on Tuesday, please show up. The hearing will not have any direct effects, but it may set the stage for future developments. I got the book from the U of U library and if others want to read it, contact me off list. Peaceful Uprising web page about tar sands is http://www.peacefuluprising.org/get-involved/no-tar-sands Hans. Hans G. Ehrbar http://www.econ.utah.edu/~ehrbar [email protected] Economics Department, University of Utah (801) 908 6937 260 Central Campus Drive Rm 343 (801) 581 7481 (econ office) Salt Lake City UT 84112-9155 (801) 585 5649 (FAX) ..................................................................................... The following is fromhttp://www.peacefuluprising.org/get-involved/no-tar-sands Hajja Romi Also known as ‘oil sands’ in Canada, tar sands produce an unconventional fossil fuel from bitumen, a thick tar-like substance that is the lowest grade of crude oil. Tar sands extraction has destroyed an area the size of Florida with pit mines, refineries, tailings lakes, and other mining activities. In the United States, Utah has approximately 93% of all tar sand deposits in the country, and could produce 12-19 billion barrels of oil if all deposits were extracted. Earth Energy Resources, a Canadian Company, wants to construct the first commercial-scale tar sands mine in the U.S., at PR Springs on the border between Grand and Uintah Counties. This operation would use consume 4,000 barrels of water a day to produce 2,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Peaceful Uprising is working to stop the PR Springs Mine and prevent tar sands projects from damaging our water, air, land, wildlife and economy. Check out our No Tar Sands Fact Sheet for more information about what tar sands are and their development in Utah. Click here for updates from our No Tar Sands campaign. Top Reasons to Oppose Utah Tar Sands Oil from tar sands is the dirtiest fuel on the planet. Tar sands oil typically produces 3 times the greenhouse gas emissions as conventional oil because of all the energy needed to refine tar into fuel.The PR Springs Mine poses a contamination threat to the Green River and Colorado River Watersheds, which 30 million people depend on for clean drinking water.Crude oil from the tar sands must have heavy metals and toxic chemicals removed at a refinery to turn it into gasoline. All those pollutants must be stored at the refineries, most likely near Salt Lake City.Now is the time to invest in clean energy sources, not commit our state to decades more of dependence on dirty fossil fuels. ACTION: Get involved with the No Tar Sands Campaign. Sign up here to join the No Tar Sands Team and add your name to our petition to keep tar sands out of Utah. ACTION: Are you part of a business or organization that opposes the development of tar sands? Add you organization to our No Tar Sands Sign-on Letter. Help us show public opposition to tar sands extraction by asking other groups to endorse this letter! Upcoming Dates Screening of H2Oil and preparation for DOGM public hearing, July 20th, 7:30pm, First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City (map)Public hearing with Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, July 27th, 2:00pm, Department of Natural Resources (map)Direct Action Training, July 31st, 2:00-5:00pm, First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City (map)Outdoor Retailer Trade Show, August 3-6th (map) Canada’s Dirty Oil: Breaking Our Addiction from Dirty Oil Sands on Vimeo. NOTE: Because Utah has different tar sands deposits and accessibility to water, tar sands mines in Utah would not produce toxic tailings lakes as they have in Canada. Instead, Utah operations would replace water for potent chemicals. 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