Coming Soon to a Western State Near You?

Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has long lamented that his native Utah "imports oil from Canada's tar sands even though we have a larger tar-sands resource within our own boundaries that remains undeveloped."

So far, rational environmental arguments have largely kept Utah's tar sands, which contain an estimated 12 billion to 20 billion barrels of oil, in the ground. Rising oil prices, however, may soon erase these historic constraints, just as they have done in Canada.

Compared with Canada's sands, Utah's reserves are, as the U.S. Department of Energy puts it, "leaner in grade, less uniform in quality, and have higher sulfur content." Because few of Utah's reserves can be open-pit mined, in situ thermal operations, which steam the oil out of deeply buried rocks, will use more energy and produce more greenhouse gas emissions than do Alberta's dirty sands.

Given that tar-sands mining remains the most water-intensive method of oil extraction in the world, Utah's prospective tar-sands developers have a further problem. Unlike Alberta's deposits, which lie in a waterlogged forest, Utah's sands are all located in the arid Uintah Basin, where water is already over-allocated for irrigation and other human use. Rapid tar-sands development could also threaten the state's groundwater supplies. The Utah Heavy Oil Center, a research facility at the University of Utah, says that in situ operations could mobilize "benzene, toluene, and xylene from the source rock after processing and extraction of heavy oil/bitumen."

Finally, two of the prime tar-sands sites sit smack in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. If Edward Abbey knew, he would no doubt turn in his grave.

Last year Senator Hatch asked the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, "Why has Canada moved forward in leaps and bounds [in tar-sands development], while the United States has yet to take even a baby step in this direction?" Until now the answer has been a reluctance to ruin land and water for marginal volumes of low-quality oil. But Canada didn't start to dig up its forests in earnest until oil hit $50 a barrel. Now that the price has reached $70, Utah governor Jon Huntsman Jr. is openly "preparing for the eventual deployment" of the state's tar sands.