Recently, the Denver Post reported that six oil companies had accumulated more than 250 individual water rights assessments that could be used in developing oil-shale properties along the Western Slope.

Geographically, the Western Slope comprises all those areas within the state of Colorado west of the Continental Divide - a division marked by watersheds flowing west in the Pacific Ocean.

This area, once marginally settled, has been growing by leaps and bounds as ranching, mining, tourism and agriculture expand local economies, most notably around Grand Junction, which is considered the unofficial capitol of Western Slope industry. By 2000, the Western Slope's population had increased (from 191,000 in 1970) to 460,000, and that growth was projected to increase 1.7 percent, or almost twice as fast as the national average, for the rest of the decade.

These oil company water rights represent 7.2-million acre feet of water, out of a possible 7.5-million acre feet allocated from the Colorado and White Rivers for the Upper Colorado River Basin, according to a Western Resource Advocates study.

This gives the six companies the lion's share of water, and the allocations - many of them older than rights held by Western Slope water suppliers - threaten regional water supplies - a situation exacerbated by the fact that Front Range water suppliers control many of the reservoirs in the Western Slope headwaters, allowing water diversions eastward (to large cities like Denver and Colorado Springs) in dry years.

The oil companies also control more than 100 agricultural irrigation ditch companies in the region, and Harris Sherman, the director of the state Department of Natural Resources, has called this a "game changer" which could lead to a regional switch from agriculture to oil.

Western Slope growers currently produce economically viable quantities of peaches, apples, pears, apricots, cherries, grapes, onions, lettuce, watermelon, soy and field corn, to name just a few food crops, and 90 percent of these growers rely on irrigation due to the Western Slope's arid climate.  

Shell Oil, one of the rights' holders, argues that it has acquired the plethora of rights to avoid impinging on other users, and that oil-shale development - decades away from technological viability - will not use as much water as naysayers estimate.

In fact, shale oil recovery, a true environmental nightmare, requires three to four barrels of water for every barrel of oil recovered, and more water for peripheral uses (i.e., onsite electricity generation, residential housing and sanitation). In dry years - a situation becoming increasingly common in the West as global warming takes its toll - shale oil recovery may truly be a starvation tactic, offering expensive but inedible oil and gas to those who can afford it at the expense of affordable food crops needed by everyone.

Denver Water has also expressed concerns that oil companies' allocations may result in the region being cut (in a dry year) to supply downstream users in Arizona, California, Nevada, and parts of New Mexico and Utah, to comply with the 1922 Colorado River Compact and subsequent 1948 Upper Basin Compact. These laws, which give downstream users first and/or major rights, may mean parched lawns in Denver and no more snowmaking in Aspen at the very least, since the 378,000 acre-feet of water owned by oil companies is more water than Denver uses in a year.

The oil companies, ExxonMobil (which own the most rights), Shell, Chevron, Unocal (a Chevron subsidiary), OXY USA, and Tosco, threaten not only agriculture and residential development on the Western Slope, but fish - most notably four species (the Colorado pike minnow, razorback sucker, bonytail and humpback chubnow) listed as endangered and found only in the Colorado River Basin. 

According to Colorado River Water Conservation District head Eric Kuhn, even the currently accepted allocations may be in jeopardy, based on an historical record which suggests that Colorado may have legal access to just one-tenth of the water it thinks it owns.

Incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, a native of Colorado, has withdrawn a number of oil shale leases recently pending a 90-day comment period, but if the leases are granted - through lobbying pressure and announcements of oil shortages designed to panic the American economy - the scene in grocery store produce aisles will be one of $5-dollar peaches and $5-dollar gallons of water.  

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Cross Your Fingers and Carry On

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