Arsenic In Water & Oil Shale Deposits

Getting arsenic out of your drinking water...

This is the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams in for Lester Graham.

You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it.
You can’t see, smell, or taste arsenic – but if you have long term exposure to it, it can lead to skin discoloration, stomach problems and cancer.

Julie Grant has been talking with a scientist who’s hoping to use tiny particles of rust
to clean up the water. What’d you find out?

JG: I talked w Vicki Colvin. She studies chemistry and nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston. Her team is using tiny particles at the nano-scale – and plain old rust – to remove arsenic from the water. She says arsenic has a chemical bond with rust – and sticks to it.

So they’ve been using these tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water in the lab. Now Colvin says they’re working with a city in Mexico. They’re trying to make nano-rust in the field, so the city can cheaply remove arsenic from the water.

COLVIN: SO, THERE’S A LOT OF, SORT OF, MCGIVER CHEMISTRY MAKNIG MATERIALS WITHOUT ALL OF THE SPECIAL EQUIPMENT AND CARE AND HIGH PURITY SOLVENTS THAT WE’RE USED TO USING AND WE TAKE FOR GRANTED HERE. [:14]

Colvin says they’re gonna remove any nanoscale rust particles magnetically
And they’re going to test to make sure they’re out before any water they’re experimenting with goes back into the water system.

RW: ok thanks Julie!





water shale SHORT RAW
The Environment Report
Shawn Allee

In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes of water in the American West a lot worse.

It's because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.

Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the oil shale deposits happens to be in the dry state of Colorado.

Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and oil could be in the works.

First, Shawn, just how much oil do companies hope to get from oil shale?

**
- gov estimates could get 800 billion barrels of oil
- 3 X Saudi's known reserves

LESTER: What does oil shale development have to do with water?

- asked several oil company reps
- tracy boyd is with Shell oil
- oil shale is a misnomer - the black stuff inside is not quite oil ... it's kerogen.

BOYD: You can heat this kerogen up. If you do it really slow, which we do for about 3.5 - 4 years, by putting heaters down in the rock formation, you can produce a crude-oil like material but with a little processing this is the first product we get out of it, which is transportation fuels.

LESTER: heating the rock underground would require a lot of energy

- right, and that's why they need so much water
- they'd build powerplants for that - and the power plants need to be cooled with water.
- something like three barrels of water for each barrel of oil.

||

- Colorado's a dry place.
- enviro groups looking @ how much water's around for this industry
- David Ableson is Western Resource Advocates
- tells me oil companies have historical rights to vast amounts of water for shale - they just haven't used them yet
- worries, if it goes full throttle - tougher for Denver and other growing cities to find water for themselves

Ableson: It wouldn't mean Colorado would run out of water. It would mean communities, and businesses and individuals and interests out there who are using water, the tap would be shut off for them. You'd be diverting water from current uses and planned future uses to this intensive energy development program.

- Ableson says rest of us should pay attention, too
- some congressmen make promises about oil shale giving fuel for the future
- ableson says only so much water available in CO, and if oil shale takes off
- somebody could be left dry

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