County continues hearing on gas rules

Decision will have to wait until at
least January

Gunnison County and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) are cooperating to work out a solution to a turf battle that could benefit every natural-gas–containing county in the state, according to county officials.

But they told a capacity crowd at a continued public hearing on Tuesday, August 2, a compromise cannot be rushed and proposed amendments to the county’s Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations would have to wait until conversations with the state have run their course.  The BOCC again continued the hearing over the matter, this time until January of 2012.
The public hearing was a follow-up to a meeting in June when the commissioners heard from expert witnesses and people in the community who were concerned about the practices being employed more commonly to get the gas out of areas surrounding the North Fork Valley and Paonia Reservoir.
Although many of the faces and many of the concerns hadn’t changed much since the previous public hearing, the crowd’s support for the tighter regulations was almost unanimous, without any industry representatives in attendance.
Only Joe Sperry, a landowner in the North Fork Valley, expressed some concern that the county’s regulations might impede his ability to develop natural gas on his property. He was assured that he still had time to have his concerns heard by the county before the amendments were adopted.
Otherwise, the crowd was eager to have the regulations adopted and cautious about endorsing a conversation between the county and the state that might erode the amendments proposed by the Planning Commission.
Those amendments would revamp the county’s rules governing oil and gas development in a way that the Planning Commission hoped would increase the protections for the public health and welfare as well as wildlife and the scenic values the area has come to be known for.
As he has throughout the process, High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) public lands director Matt Reed commended the Planning Commission for all of their work and for the amendments they’ve proposed. He said he, along with many others at the meeting, would only add a few things.
Reed’s first suggested improvement is one that was taken up by the commissioners after hearing consistently from many members of the community that the county needs to find a way to inspect the drilling and development operations to make sure all the rules are being followed. Mostly, the commissioners have been asked to charge the gas developers to cover the inspection costs.
In his explanation of the conversation between the county and the COGCC, county manager Matthew Birnie acknowledged that the state has admitted to “having a capacity issue” and cannot inspect every gas well site in the state. He also addressed the concerns about local inspection and how, if the county is patient with the COGCC, the county could ultimately get the authority it wants.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that it is actually not legal for the county to charge the companies and hire inspectors to inspect the drilling operations. That’s in statute,” Birnie said. “However the state does have the ability and the authority to delegate its inspection authority to the county. And that is one of the biggest issues from the county perspective that we are working on with the state . . . to convince them that that is a good idea for their permit conditions as well as the county’s.”
Having the authority to inspect the operations could have a “significant improvement in our ability to regulate and monitor the operation of these wells,” Birnie said.
In addition to making his own recommendations about the proposed amendments, Reed commended the Planning Commission, members of industry and the public for working through the process of crafting “outstanding” regulations.
“Week after week these folks worked in an open and democratic process to craft the document that is before you now,” Reed said. “ I would hate to see these regulations whittled down or compromised behind closed doors and conversations with the state. Given the natural gas industry’s proven track record of pollution and the lack of meaningful state and federal oversight, Gunnison County deserves strong safeguards.”
Throughout the public hearing, several community members returned to Reed’s concern about the opportunity for the state to take back some of the authority in the planning commissioner’s proposed regulations without some public involvement.
Birnie addressed concerns “that the county is backing away from its responsibilities on permitting or ensuring that this industry practices safely in the county,” by saying, “I want everyone to know that is not the focus or the direction of these conversations. Most of these things that we’re talking about can happen with or without or proposed amended regulations. If we are successful, which we don’t know if we will be, we believe that we will have a stronger hand and a stronger position in this field because we will have dealt with some of the issues and the potential vulnerabilities of county permitting.”
The second addition Reed and HCCA have recommended for the proposed amendments would require operators to disclose the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process within 45 days of completing the fracking operations.
Dr. Theo Colborn, a nationally known figure in the natural gas debate who did the field research for her doctorate in the streams of Gunnison County and is now the president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, had the same recommendation. She asked that the commissioners have the operators provide “the amount of fluid and its liquid and chemical composition that was actually injected under ground and the amount of that fluid returned to the surface.
“Already there are many completed wells in the watershed of the North Fork River,” she said. “There are no records available of how much fracking fluid was recovered from any of those wells. Early on though, there was concern because one of those wells was reported to have had no flowback.”
She said that since there are no agencies—federal or state—keeping track of the amount of fracking fluid recovered from gas wells, “It is only logical that Gunnison County should do so.”
Colborn pointed out that even though gas companies say just a small percentage of the fracking fluid that is injected contains toxic chemicals, “in aggregate, there could be many millions of gallons of hazardous wastewater sitting in the North Fork of the Gunnison River watershed. This water is not only contaminated with all of the toxic chemicals used to facilitate fracking, but also many toxic native chemicals that will be mobilized by the fracking process … releasing chemicals that would ordinarily never come to the surface.”
The concern about toxic and even radioactive elements coming to the surface with the flowback water was a concern also raised by former Planning Commission member Richard Karas, as well as long-time Gunnison resident Butch Clark.
Wilson, speaking to the commissioners’ previous approval of open waste water containment ponds to service the gas operations, asked the commissioners to consider allowing the waste from the hydraulic fracturing process to be disposed of in an injection well, as is currently done, or in a commercial facility that can handle such toxic materials.
Wilson said he was proud of his former employer, the Environmental Protection Agency, for considering a rule that would eliminate open air pits as a way of dealing with the waste water produced by hydraulic fracturing. That rule, along with others, will be considered during an agency rulemaking process next February.
The third addition to the proposed amendments to the regulations being proposed by HCCA would include an air quality monitoring plan in the application process and clarification of the water quality monitoring plan submittal requirements, which closely mirror the state’s reporting requirements.
“We feel that the language is vague in terms of the implementation of the plan and we ask that you eliminate this potential loophole,” Reed said.
But one of the biggest concerns that came out of the meeting might have been over the possibility that the gas companies operating in the North Fork Valley will sneak applications into the planning process while the commissioners are having talks with the state.
Currently, Baumgarten said, any applicants would have to abide by the existing gas regulations and wouldn’t get away without any local approval. Channell said he wasn’t sure what would happen and asked that the commissioner schedule time at their next meeting to discuss those concerns.
With the ongoing conversations with the state, the public hearing was continued until January 10.