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Friday, Nov. 23, 2012 | 2:01 a.m.
When I was growing up in Las Vegas, we had artesian wells in the valley. We used groundwater for decades before finally bringing water from Lake Mead beginning in the 1950s. We felt then that access to clean, plentiful water was something we could take for granted.
I hope our children and grandchildren will have that same confidence. Part of my job as a Las Vegas councilman is to protect the interests of all those in our great city, ensuring we make smart decisions as we continue to grow and that our families will have clean water coming from the tap.
Last summer will be remembered for a long time — and I know that all of us are hoping for plentiful snow this winter to replenish some of the water that we so desperately need. Drought and fires across the West served as a reminder of our dependence on water and our need to conserve and protect that important lifeline.
Nearly 2 million residents in Southern Nevada, millions of visitors and local businesses depend on the Colorado River for safe and reliable drinking water. For most of the past decade, Southern Nevadans have worked to address growing water demands despite a shrinking water supply.
I fully support the right of every state to develop its full entitlement of Colorado River water and understand the challenges associated with choosing what type of development merits approval. However, ongoing drought conditions requires a more stringent evaluation of Colorado River Basin activities and a higher bar for justifiable use.
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar this month required companies to thoroughly research the effects on communities and water resources before allowing development of oil shale on taxpayer land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. To be clear, oil shale is not “shale oil,” which is currently drilled across the country. Oil shale is a rock found in those three states that must be excavated and then melted at extremely high temperatures for years at a time. Oil companies have been trying to find ways to turn this rock into oil for a century without commercial success.
I have some personal knowledge of oil shale, as I became a shareholder in the Oil Shale Corporation in the mid ’60s and still have one share in Tosco as a reminder of a bad investment.
This year, I sent a letter to Salazar asking for the complete environmental review. Because there has been no success in developing oil shale, little is known about the effects on water, specifically the Colorado River. What we do know, from independent analysis, suggests that any process would be extremely water intensive and could affect area water resources.
The consequences to the availability and quality of the Colorado River should be fully evaluated before going full-speed ahead with development.
Those of us who also have a stake in the future of the Colorado River should be considered in decisions about oil shale. That includes residents, business owners and recreation outfitters who have made Las Vegas their home.
As we all look toward a winter with a healthy snowpack, we need to remember the lessons of the drought and our decreasing water supply. We will continue to conserve and manage our water use in our homes, and it also is important that local, state and federal governments work together to consider the future of our region.
Bob Coffin represents Ward 3 on the Las Vegas City Council.
In reply to Bob Coffin; it is an absolute rarity to ever come across a politician who sends out public service messages that are not consumed with party-line rhetoric and self-serving interests.
When I first saw the title, "We Need to Continue Protecting the Colorado River", I was greatly interested. But, when I saw it was authored by a politician, I decided not to read its contents.
As I perused the remainder of the Las Vegas Sun's opinion section, nothing really attracted me. So in default, I decided to read your article. Oh!!! Was I glad I did!!!
Mr. Coffin, I'll never insult you again by calling you a politician. I'll give you what you deserve. And that would be the title of "Trusted Public Servant".
Boy, did I learn a lot from this article!!! So, I decided to do some Internet research on the impacts of oil shaling. This is what I found in the facts column;
High levels of mercury will seep into surface and ground water. In the country of Estonia, where oil shale production is heavily utilized, 97% of air pollution, 86% of total waste, 23% of water pollution and at the same time this process utilized 91% of total water consumption. All this came from the oil shale power industry.
No doubt in my mind now oil shale extraction severely damages the conservation of water and biologically contaminates the overall sphere of our ecosystem.
Once again, Mr. Coffin, thank you for your public service message.
It is refreshing to read Commissioner Coffin's article about protecting the West's most important water resource. It is my hope that the Clark County Planning Commission will also take into consideration how precious a resource water from the Colorado River is while planning and approving building projects in Clark County, as their history shows that SUSTAINABLE GROWTH was NOT a priority with them, in fact, every resource in Clark County has been exploited in the name of the almighty dollar bill!
As we all move into the future, it is clear that our clean water resources are becoming scarcer and more precious. We must balance the needs of the People with the intentions of those who desire to develop or build in Southern Nevada. The time is not only NOW, but should have been a couple of decades ago.
It is my hope and prayer that those in positions of leadership make SUSTAINABLE living and growth priority #1 while planning for our Nevada communities. This is a sacred trust that the People have in their leaders/lawmakers. Had those in positions of power and planning been faithful to the People, we would never had needed to cross all these bridges of taking water from Northern Nevada and also squeezing every drop out of the Colorado River.
Blessings and Peace,
Star
People will take the water situation seriously when they can't water the lawn at all, have to use clothes washer water for washing dishes, can only take a shower and must turn the water off when not rinsing off, can flush the toilet once a day, and must collect rainwater.
Don't laugh, I lived through those rules during a sever drought. Water rationing happens.
Consider it a very real possibility if water rationing occurs due to a reduced water supply.
Mr. Coffin , please don't use the scare tactic about water shortage in the Vegas Valley. There are those that know there is no shortage of water, but there is a shortage of honest and truthful officials who are just playing numbers games with the CRC. The Lake is at low levels because the officials in charge keep it low. Thank you for the warning on shale oil ,that part of your story I actually believe.
Why are lawns and soaking of lawns allowed? What's wrong with desert landscaping in ALL commercial, industrial, government real estate?
Mr. Coffin's comments on oil shale show he needs to learn more facts. For more than 100 years, "shale oil" has meant the product of retorting of oil shale, a rock containing insoluble organic material (kerogen). Oil & gas pundits have stolen this term to refer to shale-hosted oil produced from other kerogen-rich rocks buried deep enough to generate oil. Traditional mining and surface retorting of oil shale (well-characterized commercial surface processes) does not take years; only in-situ heating, a novel process being explored by major companies, requires slow heating. Neither process melts kerogen; heat causes chemical reactions that generate oil from the kerogen.
In Estonia, contamination was created by an oppressive Soviet regime with no concern for the environment. The Estonian oil shale industry now meets EU regulations as stringent as ours. No one proposes power production here, though its water use would be identical to current water use by electric utilities providing the massive power demands of the Las Vegas Strip. In five years in Las Vegas, I saw little interest in sustainable water use. I think things have begun to change, but Las Vegas has a long way to go.
A great deal is known about oil shale processes, but Mr. Salazar's team refuses to indicate what is not known that they actually need to know. Technical people at BLM provided several options that could support a staged development of oil shale. Politicians in Washington instead chose the most extreme option, drastically limiting the ability of scientists to identify and nominate the best land for production. They removed from consideration 90% of the most prospective land, already in use for oil and gas development, offering instead tens of thousands of acres of land unlikely to be considered by oil shale developers.
Oil shale development in Colorado would use 1-2% of Colorado's water, and produce 15% of the state's GDP, whereas agriculture uses 80-90% and produces 1-2% of GDP. It would also use far less water than biofuel production in the irrigated West. Must we obstruct any new use in favor of existing uses, even when the companies involved already own the water rights they need, or should we evaluate the problem holistically, and decide what activities we wish to support at a sustainable level?
Oil shale companies deserve the right to choose the land they actually want, and to provide information on the environmental impact through the existing regulatory process, without duplicating it. Is there evidence that a land rush is at all likely for oil shale? I host the premier international oil shale conference every year, and see no indication that development would proceed recklessly, if only because companies are acutely aware of the history. There is no good reason for the extreme restrictions placed on available land, nor for the continuing assertion that we don't know anything from people who will not acknowledge the information available.