Storm over drilling site water

Hearing to consider added oversight of oil and gas industry

Todd Hartman, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 9, 2006 at midnight

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The booming oil and gas industry is fighting a proposal that would give state health regulators a role in protecting water threatened by road building and clearing of land for drilling sites.

At a hearing scheduled for this morning, a state water quality board will decide whether inspectors for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment should have oversight of the oil and gas industry's storm-water controls.

Environmentalists and more than 30 local governments argue that health regulators should oversee the industry, which must disturb land in preparation for drilling. That, in turn, makes the landscape more susceptible to erosion during rainstorms and can send stream- choking sediments into local waterways, harming aquatic life and water quality.

While many oil and gas companies take the matter seriously, not all do, activists say. So, having the health department participate in supervising storm-water controls during construction of the sites would add a layer of protection for streams and for local governments that have to treat the water for residents.

"We've collected photographic evidence at 85 well pads in eight different counties that show erosion-type problems at all of those sites," said Randy See, water issues coordinator for the Western Colorado Congress. "In many cases (storm-water controls) haven't been installed. Or, if they have, they haven't been maintained."

Debating the matter will be the state's Water Quality Control Commission, a nine-member board appointed by Gov. Bill Owens. Last spring, the commission approved regulations allowing state health regulators to oversee storm-water controls at oil and gas sites from 1 to 5 acres in size.

Then, Congress passed an energy bill that provided the oil and gas industry an exemption from federal Clean Water Act requirements. That led industry officials to argue that Colorado environmental officials didn't have the authority to enforce storm-water control regulations at oil and gas sites.

Today, the water quality commission will address that dispute.

Industry officials say they don't oppose taking the necessary steps to protect water quality, but argue that a different state agency - the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission - already requires water quality controls, and one set of regulators is enough.

"The key point is: We're not asking not to be regulated, to be allowed to discharge (sediment) into the waters of the state," said Ken Wonstolen, general counsel for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry group. "All we're saying is we have a regulatory body funded through our taxes that does nothing but regulate us, and has eight times the regulatory capability" of the health department.

Both Wonstolen and the chief of the state's oil and gas conservation commission, Brian Macke, said they're weary of claims that the oil and gas commission gives industry a pass in its watchdog role.

"When it's portrayed that (the commission) just promotes development (of oil and gas), that is simply not true," Macke said.

"We have a staff of field engineers and environmental protection specialists; we conduct enforcement hearings on a regular basis. At times the commission levies fines. I believe we take care of that public and environmental protection aspect very well," he said.

Some local governments and environmentalists calling for more health department oversight are careful not to broadly criticize the oil and gas industry.

But it's only right, they say, that oil and gas companies are regulated by the same agency - the state health department - that oversees environmental protection activities of other big industries.

The Colorado River Water Conservation District, one of dozens of government districts backing health department supervision of the oil and gas industry, said the Colorado River is already on a federal water quality list as suffering from heavy sediment loads. Locals don't want to see it get any worse, a district spokesman said.

"We don't have any desire to single out the oil and gas industry - nor do we want to exempt any industry (from regulation)," said district spokesman Chris Treese.

hartmant@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5048

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