Gunnison County continues public hearing on amendments to gas rules

Talks with state the new priority

The Gunnison Board of County Commissioners won’t be making a decision on the recommended amendments to the county’s regulations for oil and gas operations after a public hearing on Tuesday, August 2, or any time this year.

Instead, in a letter released this week (see pg. 3), the commissioners said a decision likely wouldn’t come until sometime in 2012, after a conversation with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has run its course.
However, the county will continue to gather comments from interested people while the public hearing is open.
At a meeting scheduled for August 2, the commissioners were set to continue a public hearing that started June 14 after the county’s Planning Commission passed along a set of recommended amendments to the BOCC that would revamp the county’s Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations.
That meeting drew a large crowd that was, for the most part, anxious to stop the practice of hydraulic fracturing in the North Fork Valley, where gas development in the county has been focused. Much of the development has been taking place in the drainages above the Paonia Reservoir and the North Fork River, which provide irrigation water to thousands of acres of farmland.
But what was the end of a year-long process—involving hours of expert and public testimony and discussion that resulted in tighter local control over operations near water bodies, more extensive reporting requirements and other measures to protect human health and welfare, water quality and wildlife habitat—is only the start of a new process.
Before the BOCC could review the Planning Commission’s recommendations with the public and approve them as they were or with changes, the county was sued by SG Interests I Ltd., one of the biggest gas producers in the North Fork, which is looking to have the county’s regulations thrown out completely.
Several weeks ago, the county also engaged COGCC director David Neslin, along with Colorado Counties Inc. executive director Chip Taylor and executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources Mike King, along with environmental and industry representatives.
The members of the group have since had several meetings between Gunnison and Denver.
County commissioner Hap Channell says, “The point is that this is not an official state process. We’re engaging the state and the state is engaging us in a separate discussion. I’m not sure that it has a precedent.
“The way that things were headed down a track of confrontation and lawsuits, this is a method that brought both of us to the table to say, ‘Wait a minute—can’t we engage in conversation to see if there’s a way to harmonize our regulation and respect state interests and local government interests without this apparent track towards confrontation?’
“We’re not sure if it’s going to be successful,” Channell says.
When the conversations with the state have ended, the commissioners will have the option of sending the recommended amendments back to the Planning Commission for tweaking. But Channell said the commissioners would likely take the reins and work through the amendments on an individual basis, before voting on each.
“It was a matter of issues reaching a crescendo—with the lawsuit and the pending amendments and so on—that it was spiraling in a direction neither the state nor us wanted it to go in,” Channell said.