GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — Members of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission endorsed a new rule on Tuesday that would require oil and gas companies to maintain records of chemicals used in the drilling and completion process at a well site. Those records may be accessed by the state.

Commissioners also endorsed a rule that would limit the building of certain oil and gas facilities within 300 feet and for a distance of five miles upstream of a public water supply.

Those two rules have been some of the more contentious regulations the state has proposed in its current rule-making for the state’s oil and gas industry.

Seven rules commissioners provisionally approved on Tuesday — which mostly focused on public health and environmental issues and took up most of their time during the hearing — largely followed recommendations that COGCC staff released earlier this month. Commissioners made several revisions and edits to those recommendations.

The commission is expected to conduct final votes on the new regulations in mid-September.

Some area groups, which have supported strong regulations for oil and gas companies, have said the agency’s staff rule recommendations and clarifications have been “watered down,” from draft regulations released in March.

“As I read staff recommendations, I did see a lot of the same proposed alternative language that industry put forth,” said Frank Smith, the Grand Valley Citizens Alliance organizer for the Western Colorado Congress, a regional advocacy organization. “I see in more instances than not industry language being incorporated but not those of environmental and local concerns.”

Oil and gas companies, along with industry trade groups, have blasted the new rules. They say they could cause crippling effects on the state and area’s economy.

Meg Collins, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, lambasted the commission after the commission hearing ended Tuesday.
“We were hopeful that the COGCC commissioners would focus on the mounds of scientific data, balanced motions and carefully crafted alternatives pending before them,” Collins said in a written statement. “However, that didn’t happen, which should infuriate the people of Colorado. There was no discussion of industry alternatives.”

She added that the chemical inventory rule, where industry and staff reached a consensus on language, “ended up becoming a ‘jump ball’ that ignores hundreds of cumulative hours of work between interested stakeholders.”

The drafting of new rules is a result of legislation the state Legislature passed last year that required the state to consider public health and wildlife impacts to minimize harm from oil and gas development.

Full Story: http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20080820/NEWS/
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