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Shell Awards CSU $950K to Study Re-vegetation Practices on Oil Shale Leases
7 October 2008
Shell Oil Company is awarding a $950,000 research grant to Colorado State University’s Warner College of Natural Resources to study re-vegetation practices on one of three research, development and demonstration oil shale leases on federal land in the Piceance Basin in northwestern Colorado.
CSU has a long history of conducting reclamation research. In 1976, CSU began a substantial research project in the Piceance Basin to provide basic and applied information that would aid in the reclamation of land disturbances associated with energy development. This new partnership will allow scientists to revisit some of the original studies and make recommendations to the energy industry regarding the long-term effects of various re-vegetation approaches.
One of the original CSU researchers who worked on the Piceance Basin project for two decades, Edward Redente, will be joining CSU restoration ecology Professor Mark Paschke as co-principal investigators for this new study.
Scientists will study long-term ecological dynamics including effects of disturbance on plant communities and ecosystems to help determine how to optimize ecosystem restoration following land uses such as temporary road construction associated with oil and gas drilling or oil shale development.
As part of the research partnership, CSU researchers will host a symposium in 2011 that will feature research results from Piceance Basin.
October 7, 2008 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Posted by: Jer | October 07, 2008 at 12:23 PM
If there are no long term impacts (particularly on natural inhabitants) and it is in an area unlikely to be populated [by migrating people or animals] how much harm is really being done by requiring a generation of rehab for it to be useful. The areas of shale production tend to be isolated from most human settlements. I would say that if pollution (chemicals, toxins, etc) is captured and there is little chance of poisoning the water or introducing byproducts with long term negative health effects for animals and plants in the area then there is not much wrong with it.
Posted by: | October 07, 2008 at 01:34 PM
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Interesting precedent. If we allow companies to mine, extract, drill, clear-cut, and otherwise affect a natural area just because they say it can be remediated and that there are no very-long term effects - it would seem to me that we would be opening the door to large 20+ year periods of very widespread deterioration. Of course, all human acts (almost) will eventually be restored (if not by us, then nature)- does that mean it is right/desirable/useful to allow an area to be a nasty mess for an entire generation?