BLM seeks changes in hydraulic fracking rules

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) revised proposed rule covering hydraulic fracturing is raising concerns among industry representatives. The rule would apply to hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” on federal and Indian lands.

Fracking is the process of injecting rock formations with pressurized liquid to release petroleum or natural gas for extraction. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is studying fracking to understand potential impacts on drinking water and groundwater. One of the BLM proposal’s key issues centers on identifying chemicals used in the fracking process. There’s a chance industry officials might contend a few the chemical compositions constitute a trade secret and should not be disclosed, according to BLM spokeswoman Bev Winston of the agency’s Washington, D.C., office. Times-Independent

Hinto Energy acquiring additional wells and 4,400+ acres in Utah

Hinto Energy reported on Wednesday the Company has entered into a letter of intent to acquire a 100% working interest in 9 natural gas wells and in excess of 4,400 gross leased acres in the Cisco Springs oil and gas field, in the Uintah Basin of Grand County, Utah. The company is planning to connect the well into the local gas gathering system, as soon as proper testing and evaluation is completed. They expect to complete the acquisition in May of this year. Fairfield Sun Times

Utah Regulators Approve 'Fracking' Disclosure Rule

Utah has joined a growing list of states that require energy companies to disclose which chemicals they employ in a controversial process used to stimulate oil and natural gas production.

The state Oil, Gas and Mining Board, by a unanimous vote, approved a new rule Wednesday that requires companies to use www.fracfocus.org to report the amount and type of chemicals used to hydraulically fracture any Utah oil and gas well.

FracFocus is managed by the Ground Water Protection Council and Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Hydraulic fracturing— known commonly as "fracking" — involves introducing explosive charges deep underground to perforate a completed well casing. A mixture of sand, water and chemicals is then pumped down the steel casing under high pressure to fracture the shale rock around it. The sand holds the new cracks open to allow previously inaccessible reserves of oil and natural gas to flow to the wellhead.
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are currently studying hydraulic fracturing, with an eye toward possible federal regulation of the practice. Any such regulation would be "redundant," said John Baza, director of the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining.

"Utah geology is unique. It can't compare with Texas, Oklahoma or the states back East," Baza said. "We think that fracking rules, as they're implemented and developed, should be unique to state programs."
Hydraulic fracturing has been blamed by landowners and environmental groups for groundwater contamination. The practice has even been highlighted in an Oscar-nominated documentary that included footage of a man lighting his tap water on fire.

Utah has seen a rise in drilling permit applications this year. As of Wednesday, the state had already received 141 more permit applications in 2012 than it did the prior year, and 471 more permits than the year before that.

The increased workload has environmentalists worried that state regulators won't be able to keep pace, even with the new disclosure rule.

Baza acknowledged that his agency hasn't added any new positions for nearly a decade. That's something he expects will change. Deseret News

Layoffs Planned at Southeastern Utah Mines

Forty Energy Fuels employees will be laid off from the firm’s Beaver, Daneros and Pandora mines in southeast Utah, the company announced Thursday of last week.

Layoffs at Beaver and Daneros will be effective the end of this month. Employees at Pandora will likely continue working until January or February, Energy Fuels spokesman Curtis Moore said.

The Pandora and Beaver mines are near La Sal. Daneros is 40 miles west of Blanding, about four or five miles south of Fry Canyon.

The layoffs result from low uranium prices, Moore said.

The affected mines will be shut down and placed on “standby” status. A few maintenance workers and managers will stay on site to make sure the mines can re-open quickly if prices improve.

“Energy Fuels is well-equipped to adjust our operations to address market conditions,” company president and CEO Stephen Anthony said in a news release. “Although our Colorado Plateau properties will be placed on standby for the time being, we will maintain these assets with the ability to resume production in a timely fashion upon commodity prices improving.” Moab Times-Independent

Ruling Exempting First U.S. Tar Sands Mine from Water Pollution Monitoring Is Challenged

The debate over whether oil sands mining should be allowed in Utah inched forward last week when an environmental group and the company that wants to open the mine both filed papers responding to a judge's recent ruling on whether water resources will be adequately protected.

Administrative Law Judge Sandra Allen ruled on Aug. 28 that the Utah Division of Water Quality acted legally when it decided that U.S. Oil Sands Inc. should not have to conduct water monitoring or obtain a pollution permit to begin mining on Utah's Colorado plateau, an arid region dotted with oil and gas wells and used by hikers and hunters.

On Wednesday Living Rivers, a Moab, Utah-based environmental organization, submitted a 22-page brief arguing that the judge erred when she determined that the only water deserving of protection is found in deep aquifers and that there is so little water close to the surface that it does not qualify for protection under Utah law.


U.S. Oil Sands also filed a brief on Wednesday—supporting the judge's decision. The company plans to begin mining its first 213-acre site in 2014.

State mining regulators have given U.S. Oil Sands permits to rip open nearly 6,000 acres of state-owned land in the Book Cliffs region of the Colorado Plateau, about 70 miles north of Moab. The company has already scooped open a two-acre test pit and drilled a number of wells searching for water to use in the extraction process. So far, it has found water only in very deep aquifers, between 1,500 and 2,000 feet below the surface.

After the judge ruled in U.S. Oil Sands' favor, company executive Cameron Todd said the ruling vindicated not only the company's position that there is no water to contaminate but also that its mining process is environmentally friendly. The company said its extraction process will recycle much of the water and will not leave behind the pools of toxic waste often associated with oil sands mining. Inside Climate News

Potential ‘fracking’ causes drinking water concerns

Moab residents are worried about potential groundwater pollution if natural gas drilling that includes hydraulic fracturing is allowed in the scenic red rock country.

The Bureau of Land Management plans a Feb. 19 auction of energy leases on 80,000 acres in southeast Utah, including two parcels in direct view of Arches and Canyonlands national parks.

The BLM is conducting an environmental assessment of the proposed leases to determine the potential impact, said Don Ogaard, chief of the leasing support section for the agency's Utah office. BLM officials said the report should be available for public review by the end of September. A 30-day public comment period will follow.

Gas exploration that includes hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" involves injecting pressurized liquid into shale.

The 80,000 acres are on federal land spread across Grand and San Juan counties in Utah. Daily Herald

Energy Fuels buys out uranium mine partner in Utah

It’s been a busy summer for Energy Fuels, the company that hopes to build a new uranium mill in the Paradox Valley.

The Toronto-based company this summer became the nation’s largest uranium producer through the acquisition of all of Denison Mines’ U.S. operations, which included a handful of uranium mines as well the White Mesa Mill in Blanding, Utah. Now, the company has a letter of agreement to buy out its partner — Australian-based Aldershot — from the Sage Plain properties, 15 miles northeast of Monticello, Utah. The move would make Energy Fuels the sole owner of Sage Plain properties. Telluride Daily Planet

Oil shale project delayed in Utah

Utah regulators say a Utah company will delay an oil-shale development project for more groundwater studies.

An environmental group took credit for the delay. Moab-based Living Rivers says it's challenging state approvals for company plans to bake oil shale inside giant clay ovens.

Living Rivers planned to challenge state mining approval for Red Leaf Resources Inc. at a hearing this week.

Utah Division of Oil, Gas & Mining spokesman Jim Springer says Red Leaf is pledging to do further hydrologic studies, avoiding the hearing for now. Daily Herald

Protesters gather to thwart Green River nuclear plans

More than 100 demonstrators gathered on the sun-baked desert just south of a proposed nuclear power plant here Saturday evening, protesting both the envisioned reactors and the big gulp of disputed river water needed to cool them.

A "No Green River Nuke Coalition" that included Uranium Watch, HEAL Utah, Living Rivers and residents of southeastern Utah chanted along with an American Indian blessing of the land, and some donned costumes including mushroom clouds and foam fish heads honoring endangered species of the Green and Colorado rivers.

The water, upward of 50,000 acre-feet per year, or enough to supply a moderately sized Utah city, is the subject of a lawsuit that these groups and some Moab river guides have filed. Their aim is to reverse the state engineer’s approval of a withdrawal of water that they say the river — either for fish or for recreation — can’t afford.

Uranium Watch program director Sarah Fields, of Moab, said she believes the nuclear promoters are speculating, without the means to build a plant, and may end up leasing the water for other energy projects in eastern Utah. Salt Lake Tribune

Groundwater at issue in Utah tar sands project

State regulators testified Wednesday that the first U.S. commercial oil sands operation won't pollute groundwater because the proposed strip mine is in an arid region of eastern Utah with no groundwater except at extreme depths.

That conclusion by regulators came under attack by the Moab-based environmental group Living Rivers, which is disputing Utah's approval for a water pollution permit in a trial-like hearing being conducted by an administrative law judge.

Regulators said the project site is isolated from nearby springs and seeps, and that test drills hit no groundwater until a depth of 1,800 feet under a pit that U.S. Oil Sands Inc. plans to dig this summer. Bloomberg Businessweek

Commission expects BLM to honor master plan

The San Juan County Commission spent their May 7 meeting dealing with a myriad of public land issues. The commission approved a letter to the Moab office of the Bureau of Land Management as a response to the scoping period regarding the new BLM Master Leasing Plan process.

Commissioners made it clear that they object to the master leasing plan on all levels. 
Commissioner Bruce Adams said the current BLM resource management plan, which the county was involved in, took five or six years to develop, “Now they come back and want to do another layer on top of the RMP. We object to the whole process. We object to them now including potash in the master leasing,” said Adams.

The letter states, “Mineral exploration and development have been a significant part of San Juan County’s economy for decades. Mineral industry has suffered in recent years due to market fluctuation and increased regulation placed on exploration and extraction of minerals. San Juan County has suffered a significant reduction in its tax base as a result of the depressed mineral market.

“The fact that the MLP process may take at least three years or more to complete before new mineral leases can be issued will further delay the opportunity the county has to improve its economy through mineral exploration and development.” San Juan Record

Tailings cleanup to be scaled back due to funding issues

Portage Inc., the Idaho Falls-based company that was recently awarded a five-year contract for the Uranium Mill Tailings Remedial Action project, has announced that cleanup work at the former Atlas Uranium mill site north of Moab will be scaled back from a year-round effort to nine months annually for the next five years, U.S. Department of Energy officials said this week.  Moab Times - Independent

Uranium cleanup begins in San Juan County

On top of Oljato Mesa, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to remove the poisonous uranium--a $6 million cleanup.The agency, undertaking the "emergency cleanup" as an interim solution until the Navajo Nation decides on a permanent one, has a half-century of local distrust to deal with along with the practical challenges of eliminating the uranium hazard. The current work is part of EPA’s plan to address uranium problems all over the Navajo Nation . About $22 million is dedicated to building alternative water systems. Another $60 million over five years will go toward identifying and dealing with contaminated homes and mine sites. Salt Lake Tribune

Denison Mines hopes to amend operations

Denison Mines has asked the Forest Service and BLM to approve a Plan of Operations Amendment (POA) at its La Sal Mines Complex in San Juan County. The POA proposes the construction of additional mine vents, access roads, ongoing exploration drilling, expansion of an existing development rock area and a compilation of earlier Plans of Operation. Denison owns four underground uranium mines in the complex, the Pandora Mine, the La Sal Mine, the Snowball Mine and the Beaver Shaft Mine.

The proposed POA is available online at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r4/mantilasal/projects The Forest Service invites the public to comment on its proposed action. The decision is subject to appeal. Those who commented on this project during the initial scoping period ending January 31, 2011 must do so again if they wish to have appeal eligibility on the Forest Service decision. Written comments may be sent to or delivered to: Pamela Brown, Forest Supervisor, Manti-La Sal National Forest, 599 West Price River Drive, UT 84501; phone: (435) 636-3561, fax: (435) 637-4940; e-mail: comments-intermtn-manti-lasal-moab-monticello@fs.fed.us. The opportunity to comment ends 30 days following the date of publication of the legal notice in the Sun Advocate. Read more: San Juan Record - Denison Mines hopes to amend operations