[4] It also leases from the United States Bureau of Land Management the abandoned White River Oil Shale Mine 45 miles (72 km) southeast of Vernal, Utah.
[10] Enefit is proposing to develop a greenfield oil shale mining and mineral processing facility on 13,441 acres (5,439 ha) of private lands in the Uinta Basin of eastern Utah (the "South Project").
This was conducted at an Environmental Protection Agency-approved air monitoring station on the project site in the Rabbit Mountain area in southern Uintah Basin.
The 1.2 billion barrels of oil expected from the project have been estimated to produce lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions of up to 450 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, about the same as 100 coal-fired power plants emit in a year.
are drilling or rehabilitating a series of 23 groundwater-monitoring wells on the project site to develop a model that will confirm underground water quality and movement.
[16] Results of sampling from these wells indicate excess (above-standard) levels of phosphorus, aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead, phenol, and selenium, according to the EPA's Draft Environmental Impact Statement.
[19] Fieldwork conducted in 2013 confirmed data from previous years that there are no greater sage grouse or leks (breeding areas) located on the Enefit South private property or the BLM utility corridor.
[22] This agreement was not funded and was based on a term dictated not by science but rather by SITLA, documented by SITLA's own internal minutes and correspondence with the Fish & Wildlife Service; this agreement is currently being challenged [23] Cultural surveyors found and documented several artifacts from the historic mining days of the late 1800s, and paleontological researchers found animal, plant and insect fossils dating back several million years.
[17] According to an economic impact study, Enefit expects that by the mid-2050s more than 100,000 new jobs will have been added to the state's workforce from direct, indirect and induced spending to build and operate the Utah Project.
Direct workforce is expected to number between 1,500 and 2,000 employees during this period; additional employment comes from contractors supplying the project and from "induced" jobs created to serve a larger community.
Another 210 people – residents of Utah's Uintah Basin and nearby towns in western Colorado's Rio Blanco and Moffat counties – were contacted to determine if there are any major differences between opinions statewide and those in the area of greatest impact and benefit of Enefit's proposed project.