BOCC splits decision to okay local flowback pits

Channell questions safety of open air pits

The Gunnison County Commissioners voted 2 to 1 Tuesday, July 12 to approve two separate applications for centralized containment ponds, or flowback pits, that will serve a growing number of natural gas operations around the North Fork Valley. But the approvals weren’t without some reservations from all three board members.

Gunnison Energy Corporation (GEC) and SG Interests I (SG) both filed permit applications earlier this year to build the facilities, which would hold produced water that comes out of the ground throughout the life of a gas well.
The so-called Hotchkiss Water Storage Facility being proposed by GEC consists of two ponds, just like the facilities being proposed by SG, and would hold nearly 13 million gallons in the larger pond and 5.7 million gallons in the smaller pond. SG has applied for a permit to build two facilities with a total capacity of about 18 million gallons.
Commissioner Hap Channell, as a preface to his vote against the approval of both applications, said he was familiar enough with the applications and the public’s response to it to “struggle with these [applications], big time.”
He also knows the county’s standard for business when it comes to natural gas development, as it is laid out in the county’s own regulations for oil and gas development, which SG has challenged in court.
One section of the regulations was particularly hard for Channell to get past when considering the flowback pit applications. The section requires that oil and gas operations not cause “significant degradation” to wildlife and wildlife habitat, recreation and water resources.
“We’ve heard extensively from the public. That includes the agricultural producers, sportsmen, environmentalists, tourism interests and just generally concerned citizens who tended to almost unanimously challenge the industry’s point of view that these pits will not cause significant degradation…,” Channell said
Once gas wells have been forced open using the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing and then start producing gas, an unknown amount of water will come back up with the gas, the companies say.
But with the water, according to both companies and consultants hired for the county, comes some portion of the fracking fluid.
The more porous the rock being drilled, the less fluid is recovered. In the Mancos Shale that is now being drilled into areas around Paonia Reservoir, industry officials estimate that as much as 70 percent of the fluid comes back to the surface while the rock might never be recovered.
Channell also mentioned the industry’s failures in other areas of the country, where drinking water has been contaminated and land destroyed or changed forever. On the day of the meeting, the national media had reported on several industry faux pas, including an episode in West Virginia where hydraulic fracturing fluid had been spread over a section of experimental forest two years before most of the trees in the forest died.
He doubted the safety of the open air pits and said he would prefer to see the water stored in injection wells, as it is now, instead of bringing it to the surface to store.
“There is a difference between taking questionable toxic materials and injecting them versus putting them on the surface in an open pit, even though the pit might be engineered to the Ts,” Channell said. “I personally find it very difficult to think that an open pits system of the type and size that we’re talking about is not threatening.”
Before saying that he would be voting against approval of the applications, Channell said, “There are some places on earth that might have higher value than development. I think that’s a struggle that those of us in Gunnison County are having, and not just with regard to natural gas development.”
Agreeing that the pits could pose a risk of degrading the environment, commissioner Phil Chamberland pointed out that the containment ponds would eliminate a large share of the estimated 60,000 truck trips necessary to service a well throughout its development.
He also called out SG for trying to have the county’s regulations thrown out in court, saying “We do have the right to balance the protection of our natural environment with the development of the natural resource.”
The deadlock was broken by commissioner Paula Swenson, who had faith in the review process carried out by the Planning Commission and agreed that it was a very difficult decision. A resolution to approve the planning commissioner’s recommendation with its conditions on both applications was adopted by the commissioners 2 to 1.
With the permits in hand, both applicants are required to complete all of the application submittal requirements before starting work on the pits. Once the companies have acquired the permits, they will have one year to start the projects and another year to complete them.