The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has hired an Idaho company to clean up waste from oil shale research on the Roan Plateau. The contract with North Wind, Inc. of Idaho Falls is worth $15.4 million. The company will remove 300,000 cubic yards of oil shale pile and move it to a new repository.

Gov. Bill Ritter testified in Washington on Thursday that it would be premature to write rules for commercial oil shale development on public lands when questions remain about the industry’s water and electricity needs and other environmental impacts. Ritter spoke at a U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing led by Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo.

In its quest to melt oil out of western Colorado's shale, Royal Dutch Shell has been buying up land and water rights in anticipation of what is likely to be a thirsty new industry. Some officials, however, worry that the demands of the oil-shale industry could drain every drop of the region's remaining water.

Water wars in the East should serve as a warning to Colorado to store more water, Sen. Wayne Alllard, R-Colo., told Western Slope leaders on Saturday.

There's a connection between water and energy that many water planners don't appreciate, said Melinda Kassen with Trout Unlimited. "It goes both ways. There's water needed to produce energy. But there's energy needed to develop and deliver water," said Kassen, who sits on a high-level water panel called the Interbasin Compact Committee.

Unrealistic and there is too little time to respond. Those are just two of the complaints some local government officials are leveling at the Bureau of Land Management regarding its draft report on the possible impacts of a commercial oil shale industry.

Environmentalists say mining oil out of shale could require nearly three times the electricity used by the entire state of Colorado in 2005 and consume as much water each year as two cities the size Denver. That's why they're insisting that questions about water and air pollutions be answered before the U.S. Bureau of Land Management moves forward on large-scale commercial oil shale development.

Environmentalists say mining oil out of shale could require nearly three times the electricity used by the entire state of Colorado in 2005 and consume as much water each year as two cities the size of Denver.

A coalition of conservation groups has called on companies proposing to develop oil shale on the Western Slope to disclose how their operations will affect Colorado water.

Two northwest Colorado water basin roundtables are expected to ask the state for money to study how much water may be available for energy development in the region.