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State regulators of the oil and gas industry will be in Glenwood Springs twice this month to discuss a variety of controversial subjects, ranging from pollution coinciding with gas-drilling activities to plans for setting up drilling rigs in a residential community.
On July 8, the COGCC will hold a special meeting at Battlement Mesa to talk about plans by Antero Resources to drill wells within the boundaries of the community.
Antero has announced plans to build 10 well pads, and drill up to 20 wells from each pad, at various locations throughout the Battlement Mesa Planned Unit Development. The community is located south of the Colorado River adjacent to the town of Parachute, approximately 40 miles west of Glenwood Springs.
According to Dave Neslin, director of the COGCC, the meeting is intended to provide information about the commission's review process relative to Antero's plans, and the opportunities for public input as part of that process.
The second visit by the commission will be on July 14-15, and will feature both the regular monthly meeting agenda to conduct the commission's “normal course of business,” and subsequent sessions to talk about issues connected to gas drilling activities and related matters, according to Judy Jordan, Garfield County's oil and gas liaison to the industry and the COGCC.
Although an agenda has not yet been released with details of the agenda, Jordan said it is likely that the regular agenda will be dealt with in the morning of July 14. The afternoon of that day, and all of July 15, is likely to be devoted to pollution-related issues in the Divide Creek and Mamm Creek areas, and to the question of what to do about drilling activities near the Rulison nuclear blast site.
In Divide Creek south of Silt, natural gas drilling was found to have polluted local groundwater sources, leading the COGCC to fine EnCana Oil and Gas a record $371,200 in 2004 after gas and benzene (a known carcinogen) seeped to the surface in the area and appeared in West Divide Creek.
The discovery of the seep also led to a roughly one-year moratorium on drilling in the area, and the Garfield County commissioners want to talk with the COGCC about whether that moratorium should be reinstated.
In the Mamm Creek area south of Rifle and Silt, where there are more than 1,700 wells now with the potential for up to 7,000 wells in the coming years, the county has been conducting a study that shows there is methane showing up in the local domestic wells that may be the result of the intensive oil and gas drilling in the area.
Called the Mamm Creek Hydrogeologic Study, it is available on the Garfield County website (www.garfield-county.com), in the “oil and gas” submenu under County Departments, and it indicates that “thermagenic” methane and chloride have been infiltrating wells in the area at an increasing rate over the last seven years, a period that coincides with stepped up intensity in drilling activities around the county.
“Thermagenic,” explained Jordan, means methane that comes from sources deep in the ground and is geologic in nature, rather than newer pockets of gas at shallow depths that is formed by recent biological processes.
And the presence of such gases, she said, could be an indication that drilling activities are in some way the cause, although she said there are indications that the COGCC does not agree with that interpretation.
Neither gas has been found at levels that might trigger regulatory action at this point, the study states, although indications are that the gas levels are rising and that the chloride could soon reach a threshold that warrants government intervention.
The main hazard from the methane, Jordan said, is that it could accumulate in water tanks or, if it is being vented into the atmosphere, in low-lying areas close to the ground, and be ignited by an errant spark. The resultant explosions, she said, could be hazardous.
Jordan stressed that there have been no incontrovertible connections established between the gases and the drilling activities in the studies, so far. She has recommended much more detailed study and monitoring, which Garfield County cannot afford to do.
Jordan said the first two phases of the study were paid for with the EnCana fine, and that the final phase of the study is about to get under way using $200,000 of county funds.
Lastly, the COGCC is expected to discuss the Rulison blast site, which has been radioactive since 1969 when the U.S. Department of Energy detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear device at a depth of 8,426 feet below the surface in an effort to free up deeply buried fields of natural gas.
The blast produced less gas than expected when it fractured the sandstone formations, though, and the gas that was produced was unusable because it was radioactive and the contamination could not be removed.
The county commissioners, along with other officials, want to know if it will ever be safe to go after natural gas deposits near the blast site, and if not, whether the federal government will compensate owners of mineral rights in the area for the loss of profits from those rights.
jcolson@postindependent.com
On July 8, the COGCC will hold a special meeting at Battlement Mesa to talk about plans by Antero Resources to drill wells within the boundaries of the community.
Antero has announced plans to build 10 well pads, and drill up to 20 wells from each pad, at various locations throughout the Battlement Mesa Planned Unit Development. The community is located south of the Colorado River adjacent to the town of Parachute, approximately 40 miles west of Glenwood Springs.
According to Dave Neslin, director of the COGCC, the meeting is intended to provide information about the commission's review process relative to Antero's plans, and the opportunities for public input as part of that process.
The second visit by the commission will be on July 14-15, and will feature both the regular monthly meeting agenda to conduct the commission's “normal course of business,” and subsequent sessions to talk about issues connected to gas drilling activities and related matters, according to Judy Jordan, Garfield County's oil and gas liaison to the industry and the COGCC.
Although an agenda has not yet been released with details of the agenda, Jordan said it is likely that the regular agenda will be dealt with in the morning of July 14. The afternoon of that day, and all of July 15, is likely to be devoted to pollution-related issues in the Divide Creek and Mamm Creek areas, and to the question of what to do about drilling activities near the Rulison nuclear blast site.
In Divide Creek south of Silt, natural gas drilling was found to have polluted local groundwater sources, leading the COGCC to fine EnCana Oil and Gas a record $371,200 in 2004 after gas and benzene (a known carcinogen) seeped to the surface in the area and appeared in West Divide Creek.
The discovery of the seep also led to a roughly one-year moratorium on drilling in the area, and the Garfield County commissioners want to talk with the COGCC about whether that moratorium should be reinstated.
In the Mamm Creek area south of Rifle and Silt, where there are more than 1,700 wells now with the potential for up to 7,000 wells in the coming years, the county has been conducting a study that shows there is methane showing up in the local domestic wells that may be the result of the intensive oil and gas drilling in the area.
Called the Mamm Creek Hydrogeologic Study, it is available on the Garfield County website (www.garfield-county.com), in the “oil and gas” submenu under County Departments, and it indicates that “thermagenic” methane and chloride have been infiltrating wells in the area at an increasing rate over the last seven years, a period that coincides with stepped up intensity in drilling activities around the county.
“Thermagenic,” explained Jordan, means methane that comes from sources deep in the ground and is geologic in nature, rather than newer pockets of gas at shallow depths that is formed by recent biological processes.
And the presence of such gases, she said, could be an indication that drilling activities are in some way the cause, although she said there are indications that the COGCC does not agree with that interpretation.
Neither gas has been found at levels that might trigger regulatory action at this point, the study states, although indications are that the gas levels are rising and that the chloride could soon reach a threshold that warrants government intervention.
The main hazard from the methane, Jordan said, is that it could accumulate in water tanks or, if it is being vented into the atmosphere, in low-lying areas close to the ground, and be ignited by an errant spark. The resultant explosions, she said, could be hazardous.
Jordan stressed that there have been no incontrovertible connections established between the gases and the drilling activities in the studies, so far. She has recommended much more detailed study and monitoring, which Garfield County cannot afford to do.
Jordan said the first two phases of the study were paid for with the EnCana fine, and that the final phase of the study is about to get under way using $200,000 of county funds.
Lastly, the COGCC is expected to discuss the Rulison blast site, which has been radioactive since 1969 when the U.S. Department of Energy detonated a 43-kiloton nuclear device at a depth of 8,426 feet below the surface in an effort to free up deeply buried fields of natural gas.
The blast produced less gas than expected when it fractured the sandstone formations, though, and the gas that was produced was unusable because it was radioactive and the contamination could not be removed.
The county commissioners, along with other officials, want to know if it will ever be safe to go after natural gas deposits near the blast site, and if not, whether the federal government will compensate owners of mineral rights in the area for the loss of profits from those rights.
jcolson@postindependent.com
