Regional oil shale study environmental inventory, analysis, and impact study, Piceance Creek Basin, Rio Blanco and Garfield counties, Colorado

Abstract

The major objective of this study of community impacts was to provide decision-makers the necessary information on which to base planning in order to mitigate the potentially great impacts of an oil shale industry. As study of impacts, it deals more with the hardware requirements of communities—schools, housing, sewers, land use, water—than the people impacts. It provides valuable regional timetables and quantification of the necessary growth hardware. As such, this report should be invaluable to the region in planning. The objectives of the Environmental Inventory Analysis and Impact Study were (1) to examine a number of the more sensitive components of the ecosystem and to establish baselines from which changes in the environment due to oil shale development could be evaluated and (2) to evaluate the effects of a series of alternatives and the long-range consequences for all interrelated aspects of physical and human environments.