GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — Garfield County commissioners on Monday approved two new natural gas-related drilling requests sought by a company currently facing a Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission investigation.

Commissioners unanimously approved amending county zoning rules to allow Marathon Oil Co. and other companies to propose facilities to store and treat produced water generated from natural gas drilling on property away from state-regulated well pads. Those could include wastewater treatment settling ponds, detention and retention ponds, according to county records.

The zoning change affects all “plateau resource land” on the mesa in the Garden Gulch area above Parachute, and any company would have to receive a special use permit from county commissioners before a facility could be built.

Marathon is proposing to develop 100 acres for 10 ponds, which would include fresh and produced water ponds, in the Garden Gulch area. That site would be built out as the company’s needs in the area develop. Applications for those water facilities are expected to be sent to the county soon, said Amy Stoodt, Marathon’s oil planning and construction supervisor of its Rockies Gas Team.

Water from Marathon’s proposed facilities “will be collected by a gathering pipeline in order to minimize the activity of water trucks” in the area, according to a previous company statement about the issue.

During discussion of the proposed zoning regulation, Commissioner Trési Houpt hinted at Marathon’s 30,000-barrel release of water from a reserve pit on Jan. 31 in the Garden Gulch area.

The COGCC is currently investigating the company for that release. However, that wouldn’t preclude the county from considering the company’s land use applications.
Stoodt said reserve pits on plateau lands near Garden Gulch are not designed for long-term storage of water. She said the zoning change would allow the company to build to centralized facilities that will help the company better manage its produced water.


Commissioners also unanimously approved a conditional use permit for a “construction materials surface mine” that would allow Marathon to remove rock and gravel from a hillside for roads and pads serving the company’s natural gas exploration and production in the area.

The mine site would be about 10 acres once fully mined and is part of a 334-acre parcel owned by Marathon and Berry Petroleum, according to county records. The proposed mine site is about nine miles up Garden Gulch Road off County Road 215 — or about 17 miles northwest of Parachute.

Last week, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers filed a temporary restraining order and injunction in Garfield County District Court seeking to suspend construction work on an oil-and-gas pipeline on private lands of the Roan Plateau until control measures are implemented.

Marathon Oil Co., two of its contractors — Enterprise Products and Enterprise Transportation — and Berry Petroleum Co. are named in the complaint. The four are involved in building the pipeline.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Contact Phillip Yates: 384-9117
pyates@postindependent.com


Post Independent, Glenwood Springs, Colorado CO