AN ANALYSIS OF WATER USE FOR UNCONVENTIONAL ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN THE DENVER-JULESBURG BASIN

Water resources in the arid west are allocated, and sometimes oversubscribed, to a range of regional uses, including urban supply, recreation, riparian flow, industry and agriculture. The assessment of water resources for activities such as unconventional shale gas drilling has generally been conducted at the project level, e.g. the potential environmental impacts of an individual well on its immediate surroundings. An assessment of water use in an arid region for unconventional energy development such as hydraulic fracturing has rarely been performed at the watershed scale. There is extensive and growing unconventional energy development in the Denver-Julesburg Basin located in northeastern Colorado as well as parts of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming where the Niobrara shale formation is located. Current work encompasses an evaluation of the water use for hydraulic fracturing, drilling and completion in the South Platte watershed, which contains the Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin. Findings are being compared to other regions with high unconventional energy development including Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania. Ultimately, this information will be integrated into the Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) decision support model to predict how variations in energy, agricultural and urban water use within the South Platte watershed will impact regional water resources. Communication with regional stakeholders will be crucial for predicting model input parameters for these various sectors. The results of this study will be important for stakeholders to develop methods to overcome predicted gaps in regional and state water supply. Furthermore, work will be integrated with source water quality investigations to facilitate additional advances in this important area.