The La Plata County Board of Commissioners has already had one meeting about shale oil wells and a possible moratorium on development and is currently negotiating with Swift about land use issues involved with drilling the exploratory wells.

 

Lachelt, who founded Earthworks’ Oil & Gas Accountability Project and served as its director, was on the front lines of helping to develop the rules and regulations for oil and gas development in Southwest Colorado over the past few decades. “It’s really important to get ahead of the eight-ball,” she said.

First things first

Swift, based in Houston, hosted a neighborhood meeting Tuesday night at Fort Lewis Mesa Elementary. The meeting, which is required as part of the application process, was a chance for Swift to share information about the company and drilling, and respond to questions from the audience. Dozens of people attended, along with representatives from Swift, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and La Plata County.

La Plata County is no stranger to oil and gas drilling; however, shale oil wells would be a first for the county. Most of the wells here are coalbed methane.

Lachelt said there is a difference between the two. Shale oil is horizontally drilled and much deeper; and, it requires more sand, fracking chemicals and water, an important commodity in the West and the biggest concern for neighbors who attended Tuesday night’s meeting.
Shale oil also costs more to drill. Lachelt said Swift will likely invest $4.5 million to drill one exploratory well in the Mancos Shale.
Although the company’s core operations are based in southern Texas and Louisiana, successful oil and gas development into the Niobrara Formation, which runs underneath most of Colorado, has motivated companies to explore it further.

The neighborhood meeting is just the start of the process. Swift will also need to ink memorandums of understanding, or MOU, with La Plata County before it can even apply for drilling permits and land use permits.

On the same page

After Swift filed the applications, La Plata County intervened, something it also does for coalbed methane. The two parties are currently negotiating for the MOU, essentially a contract between Swift and the county that regulates land use, the only thing the county has the authority to regulate.

Each memorandum is inherently unique, said Damian Peduto, Director of Planning for La Plata County. Since shale oil drilling has never been proposed here, that will remain the case.

In a Feb. 13 meeting with county commissioners, staff presented the commissioners with information on shale oil drilling impacts in La Plata and in other parts of the state, as well as how those communities handled the issue.

Deputy County Attorney Todd Weaver offered a report on the background of the Mancos Shale Formation, the actions other communities have taken on the issue, and potential impacts of horizontal drilling.

“The most significant impacts will come from increased heavy traffic on county roads and larger well pad sites,” Weaver stated.

Oil and gas location assessment specialist, David Kubeczko, speaks during the public meeting Tuesday night concerning exploratory shale oil drilling near the Breen/Kline area in La Plata County./Photo by Steve Eginoire

That traffic is expected to come from trucks carrying the large quantities of water and other materials needed for drilling the horizontal wells. The dust, noise and visual impacts are also potential issues.

At the meeting, commissioners also discussed the possibility of a temporary moratorium. But that was only part of what was talked about at the meeting. “For me, it was a much broader discussion,” said County Commissioner Julie Westendorff. “… This is a new vocabulary for me.”
Other counties and municipalities in Colorado chose to enact temporary moratoriums to halt the drilling process and give themselves time to add language to their land use codes and adopt procedures to oversee the industry.

La Plata County has a system in place for dealing with the issues that accompany oil and gas development, like MOUs and language in the land use code. The difference is the type of drilling, which is a first for the county.

As for the possibility of the moratorium being enacted, “I think it depends what they get out of the ground,” said Courtney Roseberry, natural resources planner for the county.

County Commissioner Bobby Lieb said they have not formalized any decision about a moratorium and it could come across as an extreme reaction to enact one for the exploratory wells.

The next step for the commissioners is to have a follow-up discussion and get informed about the issue. As Lachelt stated, “I still have homework.”