Editorial: Oil Shale — proceed with caution

We should have seen this one coming.

Oil is the most expensive it’s ever been. The price negatively impacts people’s daily lives and negatively impacts our national economy.

Our country’s leaders are looking for answers — for quick fixes. One of those quick fixes, on paper anyway, is oil shale.

On Wednesday, President Bush called for lifting restrictions on oil shale leasing in the Green River Basin of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Those restrictions should not be lifted.

They are in place so we can avoid having happen exactly what the president called to have happen this week: A rush to develop oil shale.

The rush is on because the 1.23 trillion barrels of oil in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming appear to be the fix this country desires to quench its thirst for oil.

We believe the “Saudi Arabia of oil shale” in our part of the country very well could be a key component in the United States’ energy future. But it shouldn’t be viewed as a quick fix, and rushing it could spell trouble for our community.

The last time this country had an oil “crisis,” there was a rush to develop oil shale. That rush ended on May 2, 1982, when Exxon announced it was pulling the plug on its operation in western Colorado. Oil shale, the once promising resource, in the end turned out not to be so promising — at least economically.

Exxon’s failed experiment threw this part of the state into a bust that took well over a decade to recover from.

Now, it appears we’re facing the same story, second verse. Oil prices have skyrocketed, and a company in Utah insists it has the technology that makes oil-shale development economically feasible.

That’s all some people in Washington need to hear to fire up the oil-shale locomotive.

But we cannot have people who have never been to western Colorado or eastern Utah, who read a few article or studies on oil shale’s potential, making decisions on its development in Washington D.C.

Congressman John Salazar, Sen. Ken Salazar, Congressman Mark Udall and Sen. Wayne Allard, we need you to be western Colorado’s voice on this issue now more than ever.

Don’t let people who don’t understand the challenges and the impacts of oil shale development make overnight decisions that will turn our community and the land that surrounds us into a national sacrifice zone.

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The Grand Junction Free press editorial board consists of Managing Editor Josh Nichols, Community News Editor Tracy Dvorak, News Editor Marija Vader and Night Editor Steve Lysaker.