Summary of air quality regulations and recommended guidelines for oil shale development in the Colorado Piceance Basin

The Piceance Basin of northwestern Colorado contains the greatest domestic concentration of oil shale deposits favorably located for economical recovery. These deposits are defined geologically to be at least 30-ft thick with at least 30 gal of oil per ton of shale; by conservative estimate, they contain nearly 300-billion barrels (bbl) of recoverable shale oil. The technologies used to extract this oil will need to comply with federal and state environmental protection regulations, particularly those governing ambient air quality. The regulatory framework for preventing degradation of ambient air quality was amended on August 7, 1980, and these rules are especially applicable for controlling air pollution in oil shale recovery areas such as the Piceance Basin. In this report the amended regulations and those that existed before their promulgation are described and compared. In addition, recommended guidelines that can be used as criteria for protecting public health from nonregulated air pollutants are discussed. Finally, proposals for additional federal standards are introduced, and examples of regulatory options such as emission fees and emission-density zones currently being evaluated are presented.