Gas developer amends lawsuit in response to County’s legal stance

Starkebaum and Reed no longer named

Natural gas developer SG Interests I Ltd. filed an amended complaint in its lawsuit against Gunnison County in District Court on Tuesday, August 11. The document is SG’s response to the motion for summary judgment filed by the county nearly a month ago.

The amended complaint drops a few of the sticking points from the initial complaint while other arguments are laid out in greater detail. Despite the changes, the foundations of the case against the county’s regulations for oil and gas operations remain largely unchanged.
The latest arguments omit assistant director of community development Neal Starkebaum and Planning Commission chairman Ramon Reed as plaintiffs in the suit, and drop any mention of a natural gas well permit the company was spending a lot of time trying to get through the county review process.
In lieu of charging Starkebaum and Reed with meddling in the regulatory process as SG had, the natural gas developer’s amended complaint puts the onus of the charge on the Board of County Commissioners [BOCC] and reminds the court, “The BOCC is responsible for adopting and implementing land use regulations and appointing and overseeing the actions of the Gunnison County Planning Commission and its adjunct Planning and Community Development Departments.”
On the other hand, more detail is given to SG’s attorneys’ argument that the regulations should be thrown out because they were titled as Temporary Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations. In its original complaint, SG briefly mentions the use of “temporary” as a reason the regulations should have no effect.
In the amended version, the company takes the county to task for using the word, concluding “The County Regulations have expired, and it is fundamental that the County cannot amend that which has expired,” referencing the currently stalled effort to amend the county’s regulations.
The complaint continues, “No permanent regulations for oil and gas operations have been properly noticed, heard, and adopted by the BOCC.”
And far from backing down from the county’s claim that much of the suit had already been addressed in a 2003 lawsuit involving BDS International, SG takes its time trying to pick apart that position, saying the BDS case doesn’t deal with the preemption argument or deal with the use of “Temporary” in the regulation’s title.
In that case, the amended complaint points out, an appeals court had ultimately agreed with some of BDS’s claims that the county’s regulations were preempted by state and federal rules governing natural gas development.
The complaint then adds that the “evidentiary hearing on the operational conflict of certain of the County Regulations was not convened on remand because the County and the BDS defendants resolved their dispute,” suggesting that the matters hadn’t really been dealt with in court.
SG charges the county with forcing the company into a review process that requires a successive process with the state, instead of the concurrent process they were promised in the regulations.  Taking on the county review process at a different time than the state’s review could add to the amount of time it takes to make a decision.
Now the complaint brings up the proposed amendments to the regulations being considered by the county, and a letter from the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management from June that warned that the county could run into conflict with the federal agencies, if the county’s rules were to restrict an operation that was otherwise approved.
Now the court will decide how the arguments stack up.