A Florida Mesa property owner disagrees with a recently conducted study that concluded nearby drilling operations are not responsible for an expanding die-off of vegetation on her land.
Last month, Jennifer Thurston, 55, was trying to get the attention of state officials to look into whether the drilling of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s natural-gas and oil company, Red Willow Production, had in some way affected a spring on her property, causing what she called a 2-acre “dead zone.”
Not too long after The Durango Herald’s Oct. 14 report, officials for both Red Willow and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission went to Thurston’s land – near U.S. Highway 550 and County Road 302 – and conducted extensive water sampling.
Bob Zahradnik, operating director of Southern Ute Growth Fund, said when a third-party company tested the water emitting from the spring, results showed no correlation to the minerals found in the drilling fluids injected 3,000 feet below the mesa. The samples also tested negative for the presence of methane.
“The bottom line is the water produced from the spring looks just like the water from nearby domestic wells,” he said. “It doesn’t look anything like the water produced from the coal-bed methane wells.”
Instead, Zahradnik and his team believe increased irrigation from surrounding property owners, as well as rainier seasons the past several years, account for an increase of flow from the spring. That, in turn, has killed off juniper and piñon trees, and replaced it with wetland-area grasses.
“It’s a swamp,” said Zahradnik, citing the presence of cattail, reed canary and bent grasses. “Cattail doesn’t grow where piñons grow, and vice versa.”
State officials agree and said their findings were consistent with Red Willow’s.
“Seeps along the edge of Florida Mesa are well documented,” COGCC spokesmen Todd Hartman wrote in an email. “It appears that oil and gas activities are not responsible for the stressed/dying vegetation near the seep on the Thurston property.”
However, Thurston still isn’t convinced. She told The Durango Herald on Sunday that irrigation on the mesa has decreased by more than half over the past 15 years. Instead, she believes the water table from Red Willow’s injected fluids are finally filling up, and running into her spring after more than twenty years of operation.
“The drought has forced everyone to be more efficient in our water management, so we have less runoff than there’s ever been,” she said. “The water they are injecting back into their gas wells has to go somewhere. You cannot deny that.”
“It has found the path of least resistance to follow track of the spring, and it’s going there,” she continued. “As it passes through 3,000 feet of geologic matter, it is going to change in composition. It’s not going to be the same when it reaches the surface as it is when it goes in.”
Florida Conservancy District President Phil Craig said the change from flood irrigation to sprinkers has reduced groundwater on the mesa over the past decade, and up until this year, the region has experienced incredibly dry seasons.
Craig, 60, has lived on Florida Mesa his whole life, and said he’s had some die-off of juniper and piñon trees near springs on his property. But he doesn’t believe that’s related to the gas wells nearby because in drought years, his springs dry up – a sign injected fluids are not spilling out.
“Those trees are extremely suspceptible to too much water,” he said. “They just can’t tolerate that amount of water. Maybe (Thurston) is right, but my belief is she’s not. It’s hard to say. It’s difficult even for the experts to figure out.”
Lynn Woomer, regulatory compliance manager for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, added similar die-offs are occurring at five other spring locations to the south of Thurston. He said potable, clean water is emitted, with noticable levels of calcium carbonate, a naturally occurring substance on the mesa.
“What we’re seeing is a die-off because of oversaturation of soil,” he said. “Yet on the other hand we’re seeing a thriving wetland community of plants in that area.”
Red Willow has vowed to fix any problem in the area if it can be connected to its operations. Thurston is grateful for the company’s response, but said it’s almost impossible to prove oil and gas operations are at fault in these types of situations.
“I knew it would be difficult to take them on directly,” she said. “Where we go from here, as a landowner, I don’t know. There’s not much I can do. We’ll just see what happens and continue to try and follow up.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
