The Zuke | Environmental Views From The Rockies

Drink? Or Drive?

Drink?  Or drive?  That may sound like questions to ask a a prospective designated driver before a night on the town.  It may soon be the stark choice faced by an entire region.

That's because Shell Oil is planning to build giant oil shale extraction plants in western Colorado.  The dirty little secret of oil shale development is that it takes huge amounts of electricity to bake rocks to turn shale into oil.  Huge amounts.  So much that Shell may have to build ten or more new natural gas (or coal) fired power plants to assist in turning rock to oil.

And why, you ask, would we need to drill for natural gas or mine for coal to immediately turn around and burn the stuff to turn rock into oil?  Because this project is not about any form of power-generating substance, but about the stuff we put in our tanks.  No one has developed a commercially viable all-electric car (yet).  We are so desperate for petroleum to power vehicles that this tremendously energy intensive method for oil production may someday make economic sense.

But that's not all.  Commercial oil shale will require hundreds of millions of gallons of water, a commodity so scarce in the arid West it has been the stuff of feuds since the early days of European settlement (and probably long before that).  Shell has already started buying  water rights from ranches that will go dry so we can drive by I-70 to see them turn to dust.  One study estimates turning oil shale into gasoline may require water that could fill the needs of a city the size of Denver or bigger.

The silver lining to this looming cloud is that Shell's oil and water play has raised hackles on both sides of the Continental Divide.  Front Range water suppliers, which would love to have the West Slope's water to meet residential needs, and West Slope irrigators and guardians of the Colorado River's over-appropriated flows may join hands in a rare display of unity to protect the state's water supply from fueling Shell's oily dream. 

Or we may just love our cars so much, we'd rather drive than drink.

Off-Road Vehicle Driving May Be Hazardous to Your Health

Advocates for off-road vehicles (ORVs) — dirt bikes, three-wheelers, and all-terrain vehicles — like to say that their recreation is all about the three F's: "family, freedom, and fun."

Now they've decided to add "lung disease" to the list.

In California, a 48-square-mile area of Bureau of Land Management Lands known as "Clear Creek" apparently has rather dirty air when the soil gets kicked up by ORVs. The area is loaded with naturally occurring asbestos, a mineral that has tiny fibers that can lodge in lungs and cause cancer. The Environmental Protection Agency recently finished a multi-year study in which it concluded driving in the area five times over 30 years could lead to lung cancer, as the L.A. Times reported.

Apparently, part of the "fun" of driving ORVs is the "freedom" to expose your "family" to life-threatening illness. The motto of Don Amador, spokesman for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, seems to be "safety second, or maybe third," since he promised to fight BLM's decision to temporarily close the asbestos-infested area while the agency figured out how to protect public health.

ORVs have caused damage to watersheds and wildlife habitat, meadows and deserts. And the Blue Ribbon Coalition has doggedly fought many a closure to protect public lands and quiet users. Now, even when it may mean risking their kids' health, these folks can't stop themselves from fighting even a temporary closure.

Wayne Newton, Uranium Mining, and the Grand Canyon

In the late 1980s, the country celebrated the 200th anniversary of our most important legal text: the U.S. Constitution.

To do so, a commission was established, headed by respected former Chief Justice Warren Burger. And to lead a celebration in Washington, D.C., an equally distinguished American was chosen: Wayne Newton.

Wayne Newton!!?? The original Las Vegas lounge lizard? What were they thinking?

Us young, hip kids (at least we thought then we were then) imagined the following conversation leading to this decision.

Person 1: Hmm. Who should we get to honor the Constitution on its 200th birthday. I KNOW! Let's get WAYNE NEWTON!

Person 2: Gee, that's a GREAT idea!

This led us to propose the Wayne Newton Theory of Bad Decisionmaking. This theory posits that Bad Decisions require at least two people: a proposer and an endorser. A corollary to this theory is that the endorser's actions are just as bad if not worse than the proposer's.

The Wayne Newton Theory and its corollary recently received new support from a decision involving land near the Grand Canyon. There, the imagined conversation went something like this:

Foreign uranium mining company: Hmm. Where should we drill dozens of wells looking for a site for a huge new uranium mine. I KNOW! Let's do it next to Grand Canyon National Park! On Forest Service land!

U.S. Forest Service: Gee, that's a GREAT idea! In fact, it's such a great idea, we'll approve it without the usual environmental review or a chance for real public involvement! And we'll approve it five days before Christmas!

Approving uranium mining next to the Grand Canyon is certainly a Bad Decision, though I don't suppose one can blame British-based VANE Minerals Group for trying. It's part of their job to try to make money off radioactive elements. But the Forest Service proved in spades the Wayne Newton Theory corollary, that the endorser of a bad idea is worse than the proposer. What was the Forest Service thinking? (Answer: probably what the bigwigs in Washington told them to think.)

Luckily, before the mining company could drill too many wells, the Grand Canyon Trust, Sierra Club, and Center for Biological Diversity went to court to slow down this bad idea — and won. The decision should make the Forest Service actually perform some real environmental review before further on-the-ground harms occurs.

As Wayne Newton would sing, a big "Danke Schoen" to the three groups, their lawyer (my former colleague Neil Levine), and the U.S. District Court for stopping this Bad Idea for now.