Energy Development in Utah

“Our concern is the effect that energy development will have on [wilderness-caliber] lands, and if it’s surface development that comes along with the drilling of the wells or the mining of coal, oil shale or tar sands—and then all of the other aspects of energy development that come part in parcel: the roads, the pipeline, the other infrastructure that’s necessary to make that development happen,” says Stephen Bloch, attorney for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

The organization has fought to mitigate some of the impacts of energy development in the region. But that does not mean SUWA is completely obstructionist: it has worked with at least three energy companies on development plans that minimize harm to the delicate ecosystem and waterways.

Bloch points to a settlement between SUWA and the Bill Barrett Corporation, which wanted to drill in the environmentally sensitive West Tavaputs plateau.

“The company significantly reduced the footprint of the project while still maintaining access to the overwhelming majority of the gas resources. So they are lighter on the land in terms of where their surface locations are,” says Bloch. The company’s original proposal called for 800 wells, 200 of which would be located in “areas that the BLM acknowledged were wilderness value. At the end of the day, the project that was approved by the BLM had less than six of those locations.”

Bill Barrett will actually be able to get even more gas than it originally predicted, says Bloch. But more importantly, the landscape that is now spared from drill rigs “is just west of the Desolation Canyon stretch of the Green River. This is an area that’s extremely remote, popular for river runners, renowned for its solitude, for its natural quiet—the fact that they won’t be having wells within sight or sound of the river is significant.”

The disfigurement of beautiful scenery is only one of the environmental impacts of drilling. The large drill pads, generally spaced 10 acres apart, fragment wildlife habitat and migratory pathways. The heavy trucks emit pollutants into the air, and drilling processes can pollute the air and groundwater.

Newer processes have diminished many of these problems, says Anadarko’s Miller. For one thing, the company now drills up to four wells from each drill pad. “One, it ended up saving us money, and two, it reduced our [habitat] fragmentation. It reduced our truck traffic significantly, so we’re not bothering the habitat near as much,” he says.

The company uses a gas-gathering system and low-bleed valves to prevent natural gas from seeping into the air from drill sites. “We’ve done a lot of things to ensure we have minimal release of natural gas or volatile organic compounds,” says Miller.

In the drilling process, pressurized water is surged deep into the ground. Anadarko recycles 90 percent of those “stimulation” fluids. “When we go to the next well, we only have to bring about 10 percent of that volume...Two, three years ago, we would have hauled the water by truck. That took about 550 truck loads of water to move from one location to the next—each day.”

Now the company uses irrigation pipe to pump the water from location to location. That measure alone has reduced truck traffic by 2.5 million miles per year, says Miller, and saved the company about $50,000 per well.

“A lot of these things we’re doing for the environment are saving the company a significant amount of money,” he says.

Buried Treasure
The other, as-yet untapped resource in the Basin is oil shale—rock containing trapped organic material, from which oil can be produced. Several companies are itching to start mining and processing the shale, often with new and unproven technologies.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the BLM to develop a research and development leasing program for oil shale on federal lands. The BLM issued a call for proposals, and six “demonstration” projects were given the green light with 160-acre parcels and a first-preference right for nearly 5,000 additional acres if the projects proved successful.

In 2010, the BLM approved three additional demonstration projects. However, none of these projects have moved beyond the research and development stage.

Although 72 percent of the country’s oil shale resources are on BLM lands, many companies are pursuing oil shale development on state, tribal or private land.

Several companies discussed their plans and technologies at a recent conference on unconventional fuels hosted by the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy at the University of Utah. Earth Energy Resources, for instance, has developed a patent-pending process that uses a bio-solvent to liberate hydrocarbons from sand grains. The process will leave only “clean” sand that can be used to backfill the mine, according to D. Glen Snarr, president and CFO of Earth Energy.