County planners hear about gas industry’s environmental record

Amended oil and gas regulations on the horizon

In an effort to better understand an industry it has been charged with regulating, the Gunnison County Planning Commission heard presentations from two of the area’s biggest natural gas producers Friday, November 5.
Gunnison Energy and SG Interests I Ltd filled the planning commission meeting room with experts in several fields, from law to ecology, to give a technical look at the operations of each in a nearly 20,000 acre area near the North Fork Valley known as the Bull Mountain Unit.
Both companies have made significant investments in the development of the coalbed methane deposits that sit beneath the patchwork of mostly private, and some public, lands near Paonia Reservoir.
One of the two companies’ biggest ventures in the area was the jointly developed Bull Mountain Pipeline that was completed in 2008 to transport gas from the field to market.
Now SG Interests is preparing an Environmental Assessment for the development of the surrounding gas resources at the same time that the county is considering new restrictions on where the development can go.   
SG Interests’ plan is to develop 49 more well pads, many with several bore holes, to increase their holdings in the Unit to a total of 60 pads under the supervision of federal, state and county regulators.
According to a Bureau of Land Management scoping notice for SG Interests’ plan, at peak development the area could support one well pad every 320 acres and one or more wells per pad, targeting coalbed methane with vertical, and possibly directional, drilling.
SG Interests’ goal is to have about 150 wells in the area, including five “produced-water disposal wells.” The scoping notice says the life of each well is estimated at 30 years and that the project could last 50 years, “depending upon completion of full-field development.”
The presentation was also an opportunity for each company to address some of the concerns that have been raised about the safety of the methods being employed to get to the gas and how drinking water, as well as wildlife that live in and move through the area, will be protected.
The gas companies have been trying to find areas suitable for a long-term presence that stay clear of the restricted buffers around wetlands and other sensitive areas. Since more than 95 percent of the surface land in the Unit is privately owned, the challenge has been even more complex.
SG Interests’ Geographic Information System (GIS) subcontractor Zach Purdue showed the commissioners how he layers data to develop a map detailing all of the areas that could be well pad locations. Depending on the requirements of each regulator, the data sets can be changed to give the developer an adjustable look at where they can drill.
For a look at the other end of the development, Eric Pederson of Rocky Mountain Ecological Services gave the commissioners a look at how the reclamation and monitoring of the Bull Mountain Pipleline site is going.
He explained that by monitoring the areas that were disturbed during construction of the pipeline, the company understood how their project impacted the land and were better suited to plant the right forbs and shrubs to help the wetlands rebound.
Some of the difficulty in revegetating the wetland areas was attributed to the cattle that graze in the area.
Pederson explained that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment initially inspected the Bull Mountain Pipeline corridor every two weeks for erosion and other factors that might impact the storm water that ran out of the area. Last summer the schedule dropped to once a month.
“At the end of the second growing season, we have really good recruitment,” Pederson said. “Right now, 80 percent of the pipeline in Gunnison County is going to meet the requirements for successful reclamation.”
SG Interests Eric Sanford summed up the two extensive presentations, saying, “The entire reason for showing you this presentation was to show you that we use empirical data. This wasn’t ten years ago; this wasn’t 20 years ago. Maybe it’s too much detail, but it gives you an idea of all the factors we consider for the last several years in choosing the locations for well pads.”
Gunnison Energy president Brad Robinson echoed SG Interests’ subcontractors sentiments about the lengths his company has gone to ensure that the sites chosen are the best possible and their responsibilities to preserve the environment while developing the natural gas resource.  
Lee Fyock, Gunnison Energy’s Environmental Specialist, told the commission that the company maintains 42 locations where water quality is tested. If the monitoring sites into Delta County are counted, the number of locations where water is tested goes up to 275, providing some 750 pieces of analysis, he said.
All of the testing wells get some level of testing and the domestic water wells in the area get a detailed set of analysis that include a study of primers, organic material, like benzene and hydrocarbons, and inorganic substances, including arsenic, zinc and silver.
And with all of the environmental monitoring that the gas industry has to submit to, there are still concerns from the public about the myriad ways things could go wrong in the gas field. The next round of informational presentations for the planning commission will come from environmental advocates starting in December.