People crowded into Durango’s Holiday Inn Thursday to express passionate views for and against industry regulations at the Governor’s Oil and Gas Task Force meeting.
Many wore large stickers that read “We support local control” and “Oil and gas feeds my family and yours.” The turnout overwhelmed the parking lot and drew people from all over Southwest Colorado including Dolores, Archuleta and Montezuma counties. Even a few people from the Front Range came to voice their opinions. About 60 people were unable to address the commission because of time constraints.
They came to address a commission that was created under executive order by Gov. John Hickenlooper to examine many issues surrounding gas and oil production in urban areas and a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
La Plata County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt, co-chairwoman, said the task force visited Durango early during a statewide tour of communities in part because the county has a long history of regulating gas and oil drilling.
“I think it can be a model,” she said. But she said there are many gaps in regulation the task force needs to address.
Residents raised a variety of concerns including pollution from fracking that could enter the ground water. Extensive aquifer pollution was reported in California this week.
“The discussion we need to have is not how fracking helps our economy, but how it hurts our health,” said Joanie Trussel of Frack Free, a group from Montezuma County.
Two representatives from Colorado Public Health and Environment addressed the commission during the afternoon and were questioned about known health impacts from drilling.
A representative with the agency, Kent Kuster said he was not aware of any health impacts driven by gas and oil drilling.
“We simply don’t have enough data right now to make that kind of determination,” he said.
Other residents voiced support for economic contributions that gas and oil can bring and pointed out that Colorado already has some of the most stringent drilling regulations.
“Continually adding and changing the rules is like changing the rules in the middle of a Broncos game, one cannot plan ahead,” said Jack Llewellyn, executive director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce.
Several representatives from nonprofits, including Music in the Mountains, also thanked the industry for funding during the recession.
Before the session was opened to the public, the task force explored how La Plata County has worked on a local level to manage and permit drilling to balance the needs of residents and companies.
Representatives from BP and a La Plata County planner, shared how industry professionals worked with the county to develop contracts that later became part of the county’s land-use code.
Through this strategy, the county encourages the use of existing infrastructure and limits the number of well pads within certain acreage. This has led some companies to share wells in La Plata County. The strategy caught the attention of some of the task force members who represent areas where drilling is a newer phenomenon.
People on the ground have also caught environmental impacts that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state’s regulatory agency, had missed, an experience that underlines the importance of local control, said Monique DiGiorgio with Chama Peak Land Alliance.
The task force may make recommendations by February, but Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, urged the group to talk with state legislators as early as possible if they want recommendations to become law.
“Before we plunge into a new round of new statutes, new regulations ... we need to know what we are trying to fix,” she said.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
To comment
Comments can be emailed to the Governor’s Oil and Gas Tas Force at ogtaskforce@state.co.us.
The next meeting of the task force will be Nov. 5 in Rifle.
