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10 | September 17, 2010

County adding new oil and gas regs

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Gas is a booming business in Gunnison [ By Seth Mensing ]

This is part one of a two-part series looking at oil and natural gas development in Gunnison County. The County Planning Commission is currently looking at ways to amend the Temporary Rules for Oil and Gas Development to increase the level of protection provided to the area’s waterways amid a recent surge in development. Natural gas development isn’t new to Gunnison County, even though it isn’t always evident in the Gunnison Valley. And with one big boom of activity behind them, the Gunnison County Planning Commission wants to make sure that the rules regulating the industry are watertight before the next boom. Millions, if not tens of millions, of cubic feet of gas have been pumped from wells in the North Fork Valley and elsewhere every year for the past two decades. Producers operating inside the county were putting out as much as 100,000 million cubic feet (mcf) of gas by the late 1990s, according to data from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). County lands had even given up more than 100 barrels of oil in some of those years. Then between 2004 and 2006, natural gas and oil production in the county went up ten-fold. In 2005, county lands had yielded a little more than 7,000 mcf of gas, which was modest by the standard set in previous years, and 86 barrels of oil. The following year production increased to 550,000 mcf of gas and 2,200 barrels of oil. A year later, gas production was above one million mcf of gas with as many as 30 producing wells. Just as local gas production

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began to ramp up, the county sat down to figure out a way to more effectively regulate the growing industry and passed its Temporary Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations in 2003. As Gunnison Energy Corporation CEO Brad Robinson put it, “The boom really hit in 2000.” The Oxbow Group, which owns the West Elk Coal Mine in the North Fork Valley, formed Gunnison Energy Corporation (GEC) in 2001 and has maintained gas production in excess of 100,000 mcf of gas annually ever since. Houston-based SG Interests I LTD, has also come out as the other major gas producer in the county, and teamed with GEC in 2004 to build the Bull Mountain Pipeline to transport the two companies’ newfound resources between Gunnison and Garfield counties. One end of the pipeline is close to the congregation of gas leases in the North Fork Valley above the Piceance Basin, said to be one of the largest natural gas reserves in North America. A Bureau of Land Management map of the basin shows the boundary extending as far south as Highway 50 and east to the county line. It’s just a small piece of the 6,000-square-mile Piceance Basin and BLM field manager Barb Sharrow told the Gunnison County Planning Commission Friday, September 3 that in the BLM’s land use plan, “almost all of the land in North Fork is still available for lease.” And the BLM controls all of the federal mineral rights and leases. The Forest Service has regulatory authority over operations that require surface disturbance in the National Forest. Liane Mattson, who specializes in coal, oil and gas leasing for the Forest Service, pointed out large areas of the National Forest for the commissioners that would still be available for surface development and some areas that weren’t, like the Whetstone Mountain wilderness study area, some Inventoried Roadless Areas and sections along Kebler Pass. In a report on the potential for oil and gas development in the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison (GMUG) National

Forests, Bureau of Land Management geologist Bruce Fowler and petroleum engineer Pat Gallagher write that the GMUG has historically had only about 11 percent of the drilling done in the region, but point out the area just five miles north of the GMUG is the highest producing region in the state. Even though leases in Gunnison County haven’t been a big seller at BLM auctions this year, two parcels in the North Fork Valley between Muddy and Thompson Creeks sold to Baseline Minerals of Denver in the most recent auction, August 12. That sale went on despite an official request by the county commissioners that the two parcels be removed from the sale due to rock fall danger on Highway 133, the visual impacts wells would have on the West Elk Scenic Byway, the potential impacts that wells in the area could have on the water quality in Paonia Reservoir, and the impacts they could have on elk and moose habitat. The reasons the county gave for its objection to the sale could be applied to just about any lease in the North Fork Valley. But there are still at least a dozen companies holding leases for oil and gas development in the area. Before the next run on Gunnison County gas happens, the commissioners are looking for ways to strengthen their regulations to protect water and wildlife, which are abundant in the North Fork Valley. Instead of having its say at the point of sale, the county is exerting its authority by taking a maximum amount of control of the leases before they go into production. As a series of amendments that will force oil and gas companies to take their operations farther from water bodies and better seal off drilling fluids works its way through the Planning Commission, the Board of County Commissioners set a public hearing on a separate set of amendments dealing with fees for October 5. Next week we’ll look at interest groups trying to stop the spread of gas development in Western Colorado, as well as ways the Gunnison County Planning Commission is tightening its own regulation of the industry. And how one gas company is pushing back.

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In addition to his career as a family physician, Dr. John Tarr also served as a faculty preceptor for the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Medicine. After many years of service and nearly 300 medical students later John Tarr, M.D., medical director for Gunnison Valley Health, was appointed Clinical Professor Emeritus in the Department of Family Medicine Dr. John Tarr at the University of Colorado Richard D. Krugman, M.D., Denver’s School of Medicine. “Symbolizes our appreciation Many of these students now for your many years of service. provide medical care throughYour contributions to the acaout the state, thanks in part to demic programs of the School of the direction and skills learned Medicine are deeply appreciated when studying with Dr. Tarr. by your faculty colleagues, the This status, as stated by the residents and fellows, and the dean of the School of Medicine, students.”

10 | September 24, 2010

Crested Butte News

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Commissioners vote to support withdrawal of county gas leases Vote goes 2-1

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TDC board member Marj Perry told the commissioners [ BY SETH MENSING ] that part of the group’s motivation for setting such a large area Not everyone is happy with aside is to protect a critical wildthe added attention Gunnison life migration corridor connectCounty and the North Fork Val- ing the Grand Mesa to the Elk ley are getting from oil and gas Mountains. companies. The oppoIn a letter urging sition to the spread of the commissioners not oil and gas operations to support the proposhas grown alongside al, Gunnison Energy the industry, as more Corporation (GEC) and more questions president Brad Robinare raised about the son pointed out that of I think this impacts of the opera- might be a little the 81 square miles of tions on surface and Gunnison County that overreaching in are inside the boundground water. our county. At a meeting on ary TDC has proposed Tuesday, Septemfor the protected area, ber 21, the Gunni- Paula Swenson more than 44 acres are son Board of County already leased. Gunnison County Commissioners heard Lee Fyock, GEC Commissioner from members of the director of environThompson Divide Comental and permitalition (TDC), which ting, told the comwould like to see the missioners, “There’s remaining leases in a over 100,000 acres 221,500-acre area spanning Gun- of already leased land [in the nison, Pitkin, Mesa, Garﬁeld and proposed area] that will not be Delta counties taken off the table for sale. The Forest Service and with legislation. [Bureau of Land Management] The group is proposing the found this to be a high qualThompson Divide Withdrawal ity potential resource and those and Protection Act that could be leases will remain. I think I speak sponsored by Rep. John Salazar for a majority of the leaseholders as soon as this fall, according in that area when I say they will to TDC board president Jock not be given up.” Jacober. The act would remove County manager Matthew the lands from public lease of- Birnie pointed out that the existferings. Then the group hopes to ing leases in Gunnison County work with willing leaseholders effectively cut off the unleased to keep development off the land portion from the rest of the proas much as possible. tected area. Perry said she “was

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Councilperson Phoebe Wilson said she thought the

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Sunday display would beneﬁt downtown businesses. “It could be a good two days,” she said. “This year it makes total sense to roll on July 3 since it is a Sunday,” said councilperson Reed Betz. “But I’d like to keep it ﬂexible into the future as the calendar changes. I agree

hopeful that the group would be able to work with some of the leaseholders to keep some of that area open.” In his letter, Robinson said, “The proposed area is not pristine by any means. Coal mines, at least 36 drilled or permitted oil and gas wells, 3 major natural gas pipelines, the Wolf Creek Gas Storage Field [a 15-squaremile unit], compressor stations, numerous graveled and paved roads, ranching, gravel pits, a ski lift and thousands of acres of private lands including subdivisions are all within the proposed boundaries.” The commissioners acknowledged that the land wasn’t perfect, but commissioner Jim Starr was interested in learning more about the value of that area as a migration corridor. Starr and fellow commissioner Hap Channell, while recognizing the value of the natural gas industry in the county, voted to support the potential legislation. Commissioner Paula Swenson voted against county support for the bill, saying she was “not ready to sign on to support the legislation because we have worked so hard in Gunnison County with the industry. We need to honor our industries since they’ve been working very diligently with us. I think this might be a little overreaching in our county.” The commissioners voted 2-1 in support of the proposed TDC proposal.

we should blow it out on that Sunday.” “It could benefit the parade the next day,” added councilperson Roland Mason. Town manager Susan Parker said she would begin contacting fireworks companies and would start scouting appropriate downtown locations from which to launch the fireworks.

Mountaineer Square

melt built into this project?” CBMR Director of PlanThe applicants addressed ning John Sale responded that the Community Development snowmelt would be “at the PAC Department’s concerns and pro- drop-off area, and potentially vided the details that were re- in the skier September 11-12 drop off, and also quested. The “distance between the ramp on the parking strucbuildings” item is the one com- ture.” ponent that will be dealt with Regarding the snow storduring final design review ver- age question, Sale said, “That is sus in the preliminary plan. a concern for us and the town” During the meeting, com- (the town also stores snow munity development coordina- there). “We’re going to have to tor Carlos Velado assured the meet the town’s requirements council, “All the outstanding based on the development issues have been addressed by plan.” the applicant.” Mt. Crested Butte Town Snow storage questions Manager Joe Fitzpatrick listed were raised, both in a letter some alternate snow storage from Evergreen Homeowners options and concluded, “It’s Association vice president and just a management issue we’ll Crested Butte Sports owner have to deal with at the time.” Steve Bunt, and by councilman The council then approved Danny D’Aquila. the Preliminary Plan, and the “Where is all the snow go- applicants now set their sights ing once the Performing Arts on the future development of Center is located where the Mountaineer Square North, insnow storage used to be?” cluding the proposed PerformD’Aquila asked. “Is there snow- ing Arts Center. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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Town to host opening day of 2011 Ride the Rockies A summer of bikers and runners coming up [ BY MARK REAMAN ] It will be a summer of sport and spandex in Crested Butte and the valley. First, Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, along with Gunnison, were named hosts for the inaugural Quiznos Pro Challenge bike race traveling around the state in August. And now, Crested Butte has been picked to be the kick-off town for June’s Ride the Rockies bicycle tour. That will mean three days of prep time in our mountain village for the start of the state’s premier bike tour. In addition, the local Chamber of Commerce announced Monday that Crested NORDICTUBBIES: These costumed creatures medaled in fun during the Nordic Center’s Alley Loop on Saturday, February 5. For more Butte will be the final destination for a new Epic Rocky Mountain Relay (a running rephotos, see page 18. photo by Alex Fenlon lay) that starts in Colorado Springs and ends in Crested Butte. That event will be here July 23. Let’s start with Ride the Rockies. Two thousand registered cyclists and their entourages will begin a 412-mile tour in Crested Butte on Sunday, June 12. Registration is paid off. A carbon monoxide scare at the 60 end up going to the that Saturday, June 11. The riders will travel hospital…but everyone is okay rink put everyone to the test Sunday af- 76 miles to Buena Vista from here over Cotternoon as scores of EMS personnel, law tonwood Pass. The tour then heads to Edenforcement officers, doctors and nurses [ BY MARK REAMAN ] wards, Steamboat, and Granby and ends in “We all recognize that it is most all answered the call. Approximately 100 Georgetown. It is the 26th year for the tour. likely going to be lucrative” It was a combination of a faulty ven- people were examined on-site and 61 “Anytime we can land Ride the Rockies tilation system and the Zamboni that people, adults and kids, were screened is great, and the early June timing should re[ BY SETH MENSING ] sickened more than 60 people Sunday at or treated for carbon monoxide poison- ally help kick off the summer season in a big Gunnison’s indoor ice rink. As a result, it ing at the Gunnison Valley Hospital. way,” said Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte For a handful of families living off the “It appears there was a malfunction will probably be at least President’s Day Chamber of Commerce events director Scott land in the North Fork Valley, business has weekend before the rink is reopened. Ac- in the air circulation system,” explained Still. come down to a simple choice: adapt or fade cording to Gunnison Fire Marshal Dennis Gunnison city manager Ken Coleman. Calling for community help, Still added, away slowly. A few are the last in line of ranchSpritzer, “we are waiting for a complete “There were high carbon monoxide lev- “It’ll be a community effort to host the start, ing families who carry on traditions started a installation of a carbon monoxide detec- els in the rink. It appeared that enough so if you can help by being a volunteer, we’d century ago by relatives. Others are relative tion system and we’ve been told it will be outside air wasn’t being introduced to really appreciate it. Just touch base with me newcomers to the valley, still decades deep in keep things healthy in there. We are forabout 10 days.” at the Chamber.” the dream. On Sunday, February 6, the emer- tunate it was no worse than it was. First According to a Denver Post press release, Along with her brother and sister, Dixie gency response drills performed regu- and foremost we are concerned with the more than 100 volunteers assist cyclists durLuke runs a ranch outside of Hotchkiss where larly by area law enforcement and emer- people affected in the situation.” ing the week of the tour. Host communities her great-grandfather settled in 1894. Her faThose people were primarily playgency services personnel appear to have provide inexpensive local meals and enterther, who got his first herd of sheep when ers or spectators at the Sunday tainment. he was 11 years old, built up the 2,000-acre hockey games. Two girls from Cyclists may register for the event only spread; the ranch has raised sheep and cattle the Colorado Junior Eagles online at www.ridetherockies.com. Applicaever since. It’s a life reliant on the available reteam were flown by fixedtions will be accepted February 6 to Februsources around them, and now they’re looking wing aircraft to Denver and ary 25. to the natural gas below to keep things going. had to undergo treatment in a Ride the Rockies is a non-competitive “The ranching business has been touch hyperbaric oxygen chamber to event, and riders are encouraged to ride at and go and hold on if you can for generations. clean out their systems. their own pace. However, training for the There are only three families left that had great“The two girls are doing tour is strongly recommended. Riders on grandparents or grandparents settle here,” great,” said Presbyterian/St. past Ride the Rockies tours have varied in Luke says. “I think first of all, we all recognize Luke’s Medical Center direcage from seven to 85 years old and have repthat [gas development] is most likely going to tor of public information and resented all 50 states and 18 foreign counbe lucrative. We perceive it as a revenue source media Angie Anania. tries. that will maybe let our kids make a living here CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 photo by Kurt Reise CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 and raise livestock and not live at the poverty

Gas development Carbon monoxide scare shuts in North Fork down Gunnison ice rink giving ranchers new lease on land

level.” Until the last few years, the ranch made its money in the traditional ways and has supplemented its income hosting elk hunters. But the Luke ranch sits on the southern tip of the Piceance Basin, a vast reserve of natural gas that goes north nearly to Wyoming and underlies the North Fork Valley and much of northwestern Colorado.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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12 | February 11, 2011

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Ranchland gas

Nick Hughes has dealt with both SG Interests and Gunnison Energy over nearly a decade of gas development on his property. He’s happy with the way the state regulatory process works and woncontinued from page 1 ders why, after so many years, the county is now Now the ranch leases two well sites to SG In- trying to have a say in what happens on his land. “It seems to me that you’re adding a third leg terests. It’s been a mutually beneficial relationship, Di- to a two-legged creature and I’m not sure what that xie Luke says, and although the ranch and the de- does to protect me, to protect my interests or to proveloper haven’t always seen eye to eye, they have tect the public good,” Hughes said, waving a finger always found compromise that allows work to con- over the Planning Commission and staff. “I see you tinue. The operations have been tucked away from guys as being completely cut off from any relevance the ranch’s prime meadows and out of sight for to anything that’s happening on the other side of the hill.” people traveling the nearby scenic byway. For all of the argument at the roundtable about But Dixie doesn’t pretend that natural gas development is an operation without risk. “There are the potential for repetition between the current certainly risks,” she says. “If you’re in the ranching state rules and those proposed by the county, the business, land and water are our most important re- Planning Commission and legal counsel have been careful to say that county permit reviews can run sources and we intend to take care of those.” She also knows “natural gas is a resource our alongside reviews required by state or federal agencies. They’re still ironing out other areas country needs” and wants to make sure of redundancy or inconsistency. first-hand that the resource is developed But the county has been reluctant to responsibly. She says she and her siblings rely too heavily on the state’s rules and have been “working with the company has been eager to draft its own. to locate the wells in places that will have Gunnison County special counthe least impact.” sel Barbara Green explained that the ...you’re While gas development has been “county not only has its own authority going on in the North Fork for decades, adding a third granted to [it] by the state legislature, it it wasn’t until 2005 that the private and leg to a two has its own responsibilities… in protectfederal mineral deposits in the area startlegged ing the socio-economics and the envied to see major development. ronment” that have nothing to do with creature... Luke was one of a half-dozen North the relationship between landowner Fork landowners who attended a roundand gas developer. “It’s a larger respontable discussion on natural gas developNick Hughes sibility,” she said. ment at Western State College on Friday, North Fork Valley The county’s effort at protecting the February 2. resident environment seemed to be appreciated, In hosting the event, the Gunnison to some degree, by all of the landowners County Planning Commission brought in attendance, even if most said they felt all of the players with a stake in the the county was going too far in fulfilling county’s gas development to the table. The idea was to “get down to the nuts and bolts in its obligation. David Clinger is an environmental planner and determining what is going to work for the county landscape architect who has owned a ranch along and everyone else involved in rewriting this lanMuddy Creek for 30 years. It’s a labor of love that guage [in the county’s Temporary Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations],” commission chairman has cost him dearly, to the tune of $50,000 a year. “You can do the math… that’s a lot of money,” he Ramon Reed said. Members of the Planning Commission, staff says. And now he sees a chance to make some of it and legal counsel sat at the “roundtable” alongside back. Clinger spoke with conviction in front of the representatives from Gunnison County’s two major gas producers, Gunnison Energy and SG Interests, roundtable about his concerns for the process being members of the “federal family” (BLM), and David laid out by the county. His entire property could be Ludlam from the industry group West Slope Colo- off-limits to drilling if the county followed through rado Oil and Gas Association, as well as environ- on its proposed amendments aimed at keeping drilling operations away from water bodies. mental advocates. In the proposed amendment, the county has Topics on the roundtable agenda were mostly technical in nature, ranging from the various types laid out rules that keep all oil and gas operations and advantages/drawbacks of pits used in gas 300 feet from the high water mark of “the closest drilling operations; redundancy in the regulatory water body.” Gas operations within 1,000 feet of a scheme; different technology being used in the gas water body will be required to maintain a closed fields; and the highly contentious practice of hy- system to minimize the chance of a leak. Clinger felt the rules were so restrictive they draulic fracturing. Noticeably absent from the roundtable were would preclude gas operators from drilling on his the people—other than the federal land managers— property, even thought it’s already been leased to playing host to the development on private land. SG Interests. Many of the creeks in the drainage that surround his property, which would be clasBut they didn’t go unnoticed. During the two public comment periods, and sified as water bodies under the county’s proposed occasionally outside of them, the landowners who rules, “are nothing more than debris flows,” Clinghad come to lobby in favor of relaxing the county’s er said. “We’ve been up there for years, working with regulations to make way for a ready source of revthat land, trying to work with all of the environenue told their stories in turn. Gary Volk is the patriarch of one of the long- mental policy we deal with, and now we want some established families in the North Fork. “We’ve been revenue from oil and gas. As I read these regulain that valley for 100 years, basically. My granddad tions, you would preempt me from leasing my minwalked over Kebler on the snow to homestead over erals to SG [Interests],” Clinger continued. “I’m there and he rubbed out a ranch from the sagebrush, pretty upset about it.” By the time the meeting had drawn to a close, rocks and oaks,” he told the rule-makers. “There are four major 100-year families in that Clinger said he “came here really worried, but I feel valley and we feel we’ve been good caretakers of better right now.” Volk agreed, saying he was “enthe area and it is still a pristine area that hasn’t been couraged by the ground they’ve covered today,” overrun by subdividers and 35-acre tracts. But these and reminded the Planning Commission that the families of the North Fork “value our land tremenmajor families are the key to that not happening... “I concur that we’ve had good relations with dously.” After the meeting, Clinger paused in the hallthe gas companies,” Volk continued. “They’ve way to explain his situation and the significance of worked with us on a daily basis when necessary to having a gas operation on his property, punctuattake care of problems.” Volk went on to say he thought the oversight ing his anecdote with a joke: “One fella tells another the industry gets from the state is enough. He fella that he just won a million dollars. The second thinks the system ensures that “if it isn’t done right, guys asks the first what he’s going to do with all the money. ‘Ranch until it’s all gone,’ he said.” someone will be taking them to task. The Planning Commission will continue talk“We want to have a future as a family and keep ing about the draft changes at a work session on Frithese ranches in open space where wildlife is plenday, February 11, with the proposed amendments tiful… and we’ve done it on our own,” Volk said. “Now we have a income source that can help us to the Temporary Regulations for Oil and Gas Opmaintain that into the next generation and I encour- erations that reflect the broad, ongoing discussions age you to be careful about over-regulating this in- about water quality to the Board of County Commissioners to follow this spring. dustry… They can help us all.”

“

8 | May 20, 2011

Crested Butte News

NEWS

Elk Creek Mine in Somerset. photo by Mark Reaman

County Elk Creek mine taking operation to Delta “We don’t see viable reserves in this area any longer”

Well pad on Hotchkiss Ranch. photo by Seth Mensing

Gas industry seeking to fill financial void left by coal Fracking a concern

[ By Seth Mensing ]

A small piece of Gunnison County’s landscape and a bigger share of its revenue stream are going to see big changes in the coming years, as Oxbow’s Elk Creek Mine, one of three major coal producers in the North Fork Valley, finishes work in its existing leases and moves down the road into Delta County. Coal mining operations contribute more than $2 million in property and severance taxes each year to Gunnison County. At the same time, natural gas production is picking up pace and is set to replace coal as the county’s most profitable export. On May 6, Oxbow Carbon applied for an exploratory drilling permit from the Bureau of Land Management for an area of Oak Mesa, north of Hotchkiss and entirely inside Delta County. Randy Litwiller, vice president of Oxbow Mining, says it’s a first step to finding a new place for Elk Creek’s 360 miners to go when the current operation is closed, likely no later than 2017. Moving the operation to Oak Mesa is also another chance for Oxbow to tap the USGS-estimated 750 million tons of recoverable coal in that northwestern knob of Gunnison County known as the North Fork Valley, where a century-old mining tradition lives alongside organic farmers, wineries and an established ranching community. Still, the company is pushing to get two lease extensions at Elk Creek. One would be small, at about 150 acres, and would extend the life of the mine only six months. The other is a physical extension of the coal lease known as the East Tract that covers 786 acres and would add several years to the life of the mine. But environmental groups are pushing back against the company’s efforts to do any more mining in the North Fork, and environmental advocates Wildearth Guardians and Earth Justice have appealed the federal decisions that would give the miners a green light to expand. If both efforts to stop the leasing were successful, the coal seams could dry up in the next few years. After recounting the struggles his company has had in getting its operations permitted, Litwiller says, “We don’t see viable reserves in this area any longer.” But just down Highway 133 near Hotchkiss, things are looking a lot better. He says that in looking for a place to relocate the operation the company saw coal from Anthracite Creek to Crested Butte, but settled on the location in Delta County “that showed the most promise.” “That place has been dotted with old small mom and pop type mines for the last 100 years,” Litwiller says, adding that the company will mine there for at least 20 more years. “There’s no secrets to [the coal in that area], but it’s remote enough that it hasn’t been targeted until now.” And operations aren’t going to slow down at the Elk Creek Mine while the paperwork is filed for the mine on Oak Mesa. Litwiller says, “The permitting process, if it goes on unencumbered, will take every bit of the life of [the Elk Creek] mine to accomplish.” The Elk Creek Mine produces between five million and six million tons of coal a year, worth as much as $74 million on the market today, that provides more than $18 million in taxes to the federal government (half of which comes back to the state) and hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance taxes to the county. Gunnison County finance director Linda Nienhueser says last year the county took in $428,093.61 in all its severance tax, which is funneled through the state. The county’s share of the money goes into the general fund of the budget to pay for most things related to the government’s administration. The county also received $1.9 million in property taxes in 2010, Litwiller says of the mine located in Somerset. “All pieces play a part. If natural gas picks up and the coal mine decreases production, it could balance out,” Nienhueser says. “But coal is obviously a major tax payer in the county.”

The natural gas industry, which pays a severance tax as well as what Gunnison Energy Corporation president Brad Robinson calls “significant property tax on the value of our pipelines and well facilities,” is also a major county taxpayer, and its share may be growing. Gas is more expensive to buy at market than coal per million BTUs produced. Recently the cost of natural gas has been hovering around the mid-$4 range per million BTUs (British Thermal Units). This month, the local, low-sulfur, relatively low BTU variety of bituminous coal was going for about $0.70 per million BTUs. That’s why it is cheaper to generate electricity with coal than with gas. But for an economy moving toward taking a cut from the sale of gas, as opposed to coal, the difference in price is promising. However, the gas companies that operate in the North Fork Valley, namely Gunnison Energy Corporation (an Oxbow company) and SG Interests, have suggested in public meetings that they’re operating at near capacity and that, in the short term, they couldn’t produce much more gas than they are now. According to Robinson, GEC is producing about 7,000 MMBTU (a million BTUs) per day, adding, “It should ramp up quickly if we get the permit for the water storage pits and our horizontal wells are successful.” Even at the current rate of production, the amount of tax that could potentially be collected by the county is significant. In an example provided by Robinson, the county will start getting several hundred thousands dollars in tax revenue when production reaches 30,000 MMBTU, and more than a million dollars in revenue at around 50,000 MMBTU of production. But the shift is in more than just the revenue stream, and increasingly public bodies are seeing the public show interest in the emerging natural gas industry that hadn’t been shown toward coal. It’s a move to something different from a seemingly ever-present coal industry that has existed in a far corner of the county and in the budget. Natural gas development in the scale seen in the last few years is a relatively new enterprise in Gunnison County, where recent history has been shaped in many ways by extractive industries. That industrial past has also left scars on the land and on the minds of people moving to

the area for its beauty. In places, it has tainted the water and also the public’s image of extractive industries where an aesthetic-based economy has developed. Still, the two coal mines inside the county boundary, Elk Creek and Arch Coal’s West Elk Mine, have been a part of the balance for decades. High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) public lands director Matt Reed says, “We’re not opposed to coal mining at currently operating mines. What we’re opposed to is expansion, especially into roadless areas on public land where there are going to be surface impacts.” But some of the gas industry’s practices, like hydraulic fracturing, have drawn skepticism from regulators and citizens concerned about the potential for environmental fallout in sensitive ecosystems. No matter how much the resource is worth, groups like Hotchkissbased Citizens for a Healthy Community and the North Fork River Improvement Association say it isn’t worth the risk of doing damage to a vital and irreplaceable water resource. Crested Butte-based HCCA has also taken an active role in shaping a set of amendments being considered for the Gunnison County Regulations for Oil and Gas Development that would tighten, in many ways, regulations for gas operations. “What HCCA is asking for in terms of energy development in the North Fork is a balance. On one hand you have industry providing jobs and tax revenues, but on the other hand there’s critical need to protect human health and the environment. There’s the potential of it swinging toward the former at the expense of the human health and environment.” Reed also points out that the recent billing natural gas has gotten as a means toward a greener energy future might not be accurate at all “when you look at the cradle-to-grave comparison,” he says. It’s also important to remember that the county is losing one of the coal mines that operate within its boundaries, but the North Fork Valley isn’t losing anything. Instead the coal industry is moving over, in a sense, to make room for the gas industry. “The proposed county regulations achieve a balance between the resource extraction and environmental and human health concerns,” Reed says. “I feel like the public’s starting to be made aware of this and that it’s not about having one and not the other. It’s about a more common sense approach that allows for both.” The commissioners will hold a two-hour public hearing on the proposed amendments to the Gunnison County Regulations for Oil and Gas Development at their meeting on June 14.

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Ride the Rockies rolls into town to start summer Beer, bands and bikers [ by Mark Reaman ]

OK, SUMMER’S HERE! Jesse Blumenthal and Sarah Chesebrough slip n’ slide their way through a beautiful June day. photo by Alex Fenlon

Council will make MMJ decision at June 20 meeting

Impacts on kids and on patients debated [ By Mark Reaman ]

The town attorney appears to have stepped back and taken a lighter touch on medical marijuana (MMJ). The Town Council looks ready to continue the experiment for another year. And the great Crested Butte MMJ debate will continue until at least June 20. At its June 6 meeting, the council set for public hearing an ordinance extending the current MMJ dispensary permits in town for 12 months. If the ordinance fails, the permits will sunset and the three operating dispensaries will be closed. But while town attorney John Belkin again re-emphasized at the Town Council meeting on June 6 that selling any type of marijuana, medical or otherwise, remains against federal law, he did say the chances of the feds coming in to prosecute town staff or council with a crime as a result of allowing MMJ dispensaries in town are very unlikely. However, brief discussion by the public showed the council that there is some concern about local children and the availability of marijuana in the community. That discussion will be continued at the June 20 meeting. The council also heard from attorney Sean McAllister, a Colorado expert on MMJ at a late-afternoon work session on the issue. He was brought in by two of the local dispensaries. “Your town and county have always voted in favor of state medical marijuana laws,” he said. “In fact, in 2006, this county and community voted heavily in favor of a statewide proposal legalizing marijuana.” “Now, the feds haven’t raided one dispensary in Colorado,” McAllister continued. “They have continued to do what they said they were going to do. The idea that the feds will change their mind and come into little Crested Butte at the end of the road is not very likely.” continued on page 14

Natural gas developer sues county over proposed rules Company wants relief from the regulations [ By Seth Mensing ] SG Interests I Ltd., one of the biggest producers of natural gas working in the North Fork Valley, filed a lawsuit Thursday, June 2, aiming ultimately at putting an end to the county’s regulation of the oil and gas industry. The Houston-based company named the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners, Ramon Reed in his official capacity as Planning Commission chairman, and Neal Starkebaum in his role as assistant planning director as defendants in the suit. Over the course of the 35-page complaint, the company calls into question the county’s legal standing for regulating the gas industry— something it sees as being squarely in the state’s jurisdiction—and accuses the county of drawing out and delaying its review process. The complaint starts, “A dispute has arisen between the parties with regard to the County’s attempts, through a County-made regulatory muddle, to delay unreasonably oil and gas development in Gunnison County. “The County’s actions are con-

trary to Colorado law. As to the particular oil and gas operations described below, the County’s Regulations are void and its regulatory authority preempted by state and federal law.” The preemption question has been discussed at length among the county attorney, David Baumgarten, and members of the Planning Commission and the public. Consistently, the county has taken the stance that preemption is never assumed or implied in the law unless a local regulation comes into conflict with some higher authority. Baumgarten has also taken the position that the county should take an active role in regulating industries that could have a negative impact on the health and welfare of the county’s inhabitants, human or otherwise. SG Interests, on the other hand, believes the state is already doing a thorough job of regulating industry through the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) rules, amended in 2008 with Gunnison County’s participation, and is asking the court to sort out the conflict. If the company gets what it’s asking for in the suit, the county’s oil and gas regulations will become “invalid and of no force and effect.” continued on page 15

It’s about to begin and it will begin with a bang this weekend. The summer season kicks off this Friday with the Ride the Rockies bike tour coming to the valley. More than 3,500 people are expected to start arriving in Crested Butte on Friday. As the first stop on the tour, the valley should see a couple of days of impact before the riders hit the road Sunday about 8 a.m. “There will be a lot of people in Crested Butte,” promised Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce events director Scott Still. “The organizers, volunteers and the Ride-the Rockies VIPs should be here Friday, with most of the riders and their entourages getting in on Saturday.” The Friday arrivals appear to be based in Mt. Crested Butte, where meetings and training will be held. Registration for the tour will start Saturday at the Crested Butte Community School. Ride the Rockies organizers will take care of that. The chamber will take care of the rest of the day. “The Ride the Rockies-Crested Butte Soul Center of Cycling Street Fest will be Saturday. Elk Avenue will be closed in the center of town and a stage set up,” said Still. “Activities will start around noon and run until about 9:30 that night. There will be bands, food booths, a beer garden, street activities for the kids, massages for the participants. It should be a great scene,” Still added. Still said the bands will start playing about 1 p.m. Local band Rock Bottom will kick off the festival. The Strider Cup, a bike race for kids, will be held at 3 p.m. At about 4 p.m., another local band, Better Late Than Never, will entertain the crowd. The night will finish with Minnesota Bluegrass band, the Gypsy Lumberjacks. “There should be a lot of cool things going on,” Still said. “There will be a beer garden, food booths, vendors and information booths. The stage will be at Third and Elk. It will be set up sort of like the Fourth of July.” Riders can enjoy a small lunch at the school on Saturday and breakfast on Sunday before the bikers take off for Buena Vista over Cottonwood Pass. Camping areas will be provided in the school soccer field and also in the gymnasium. Still said the area lodges and hotels are also seeing good business from the event. continued on page 14

“

[ Overheard ]

Paul Andersen: Revisited

“This town don’t tweet.” -as opposed to Anthony Weiner

Cycling By Hand

Crested Butte News

June 10, 2011 | 15

NEWS

SG sues County over regulations

Council MMJ continued from previous page

who like the use of marijuana should try to get it totally legalized and then have it regulated at both the state and federal levels. “When I hear my ten-yearold son come off the Mountain Express asking about marijuana candy and marijuana ice cream, I think it goes too far. It shouldn’t be marketed to teenagers. That’s not responsible,” said Martineau. “I’ve heard that there is so much marijuana in the valley that the quote, unquote patients go to the dispensaries and then sell it. I hope you as a council really consider not approving this.” Jonathan Houcke and Brooke Harless of the Gunnison County Substance Abuse Prevention Project (GCSAPP) pointed out that marijuana use among Crested Butte high school students is above the state and national averages. “Has it gone up significantly since the dispensaries were allowed in town? That’s a correlation worth investigating further,” said Harless. “It’s a difficult situation,” said Harless. “I understand there are some real attributes with medical marijuana. But it is a sticky topic around youth. It’s not a harmless drug. It has real nega-

tive effects on teenagers and their brain development. “There’s more pot around here now,” she continued. “We have a lot more work now trying to educate the youth of the community about marijuana. They have a perception that it is safe because it is medicine. That’s obviously not always the case.” The council will hold an official public hearing over whether or not to extend the permits for 12 months at the June 20 council meeting.

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“Just so you know, the United States [Veterans Administration] approved our types of treatment for veterans,” Hattendorf continued. “It may be a social or political issue in the eyes of some, but I’m not concerned with that. I’m concerned with our patients. This product helps cancer patients and those with HIV and those in pain. “ Her husband, Steve Hattendorf, told the council that dispensaries aren’t get-rich-quick schemes. “The new Colorado law is a real peach,” he said. “These new requirements are super-expensive. To see this and want to keep going is almost crazy. I’m a Cubs fan so I don’t know a lot about joy and happiness, but this is rough.” Laura Martineau countered, “There is a serious problem with marijuana use with the kids in this town and it’s gotten worse since the dispensaries opened. Despite what I heard tonight, I think a lot of this medical marijuana is going to recreational use.” Martineau argued that those

no one got everything they wanted, although the county, the court ruled, wasn’t preempted most of the time. Until now the county has stood on the legal ground the appellate court ruling has provided without any major challenges. The current “dispute” identified in the complaint between the county and SG Interests had only become publicly visible since the county Planning Commission took up a process to amend the regulations last year. Although it was SG that had asked for the amendment process initially, as the rules started coming out of Planning Commission work sessions the company started raising the alarm that the amendments were going too far. While the suit makes no mention of the amendments currently being considered, SG’s operations and land manager Eric Sanford and other representatives of the company would attend planning commission meetings and, when appropriate, let the commission know that they thought the regulations were unnecessary. In one case at a Planning Commission work session late last year, Sanford told the commissioners, “The big picture here for me is that we still strongly disagree with both the county attorney and with this presentation that many of the proposed amendments are preempted by state rules,” Stanford said. “I think the argument that the state’s 2008 rulemaking process was somehow incomplete may or may not be the case, but they are the rules.” A new decision about whether the county gets to make separate but complementary rules of its own could be months away and until then, Baumgarten says, nothing will change in the way the county operates. The functions of the Community Development Department and the Planning Commission will continue reviewing applications under the Regulations for Oil and Gas Development, he says. The suit also claims the county’s rules are void because the word “temporary” was used in the title of the regulations. According to the suit, that means the regulations “may be valid, but only for a period of six months.” The county only recently dropped the word “temporary” from the title. Baumgarten is preparing a response to the complaint by the end of the month, due June 23 and possibly a motion to dismiss. He will hold a special meeting with the county commissioners to discuss the suit going forward Thursday, June 9.

continued from page 1 If the court won’t grant the request in full, SG is willing to bargain a little. On the table are the company’s current obligations to pay for experts (of the county’s choosing) to review documents and the preemption of specific county rules. The complaint also asks the court to allow SG to continue with operations that have already been permitted by the state. In a couple of cases—including a permit application for the Pasco Spadafora #3 gas well and another for a pair of water containment ponds—the county’s review process has been drawn out longer than the company would like. A further delay for the application came last month, when the Planning Commission was shaken by the early and unexpected exit of its chairman. The remaining commissioners voted not to approve the well until more information could be gathered. “The singular and cumulative actions and inactions of the Defendants and the excessive scope of the County Regulations interfere with SG’s ability to coordinate and schedule drilling operations and drilling rigs … and are causing SG irreparable harm for which it does not have an adequate remedy at law,” the complaint reads. SG wants the court to make the county stop the review altogether or force it to move the process along. The complaint later adds, “Such delays significantly impact the State of Colorado’s policy of promoting a timely, efficient and predictable permitting process for oil and gas operations.” Even Baumgarten told the Planning Commission in early May to move the process along. As for the other claims made in the complaint, the county attorney has experience fending off assaults on the county’s regulation. The county’s “attempt,” as the complaint puts it, at regulating the industry started in mid-2003 when the county commissioners adopted the Temporary Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations. The same year, the county went to court in Board of County Commissioner of Gunnison County v BDS International LLC. In that case, which ended up in the Colorado Court of Appeals, gas companies BDS International and Gunnison Energy Corporation, along with the COGCC, made many of the claims about preemption that SG is making now. When the ruling came down in that case,

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“I DIDN’T KNOW HE WAS THERE”: County Commisioner Hap Channell notices Jackson Melnick’s (mostly) silent protest on the floor of the Commissioners’ meeting room during a public hearing on rules related to natural gas extraction on Tuesday, June 14. photo by Alex Fenlon

Coburn takes County extends public hearing of NCAA steepleproposed amendments to gas regs chase national title Meeting continued to August 2 Next stop, USTAF championships

[ By Seth Mensing ]

[ by Than Acuff ]

The Gunnison County commissioners’ public hearing of the proposed amendments to the county’s Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations on Tuesday, June 14 had a little bit of everything, from protest theatrics to a “celebrity geologist” and a lot of community input. The only thing missing was a decision on the expanded rules. Over the last year, the county—through the Planning Commission and staff—has held a dozen work sessions to revamp the county’s rules governing oil and gas development, which has mainly been confined to the North Fork Valley and areas near the Paonia Reservoir. The potential for real impacts to resources that travel far beyond the county’s boundaries, like water and fruit grown in the Valley, forced the commissioners to look at impacts to water and human health. As a result, the proposed rules that came out of the process would tighten the regulation of gas operations operating near water and make contamination detection a priority. More than 50 people packed the room; many of them spoke to the commissioners during the two-hour hearing. And while nearly everyone who spoke at the public hearing was in favor of the county-proposed regulations,

Homegrown track and field superstar Emma Coburn hit another benchmark in her track and field career this past weekend, winning the NCAA title in the 3,000-meter steeplechase. Coburn got her start running as a Titan here in Crested Butte, earning a scholarship to Division I track and field powerhouse CU Boulder. She qualified for the national championships as a freshman in 2009 and took 11th place. Last year, she won Photo by Scott Weaver the Big 12 title and then ran a 9:51 and placed second at the national championships. She opened her 2011 outdoor track and field steeplechase season with a bang at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational on May 1. The event draws the top professional and collegiate steeplers in the nation. continued on page 17

many had taken up the recommendations put forward by High County Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) public lands director Matt Reed that would require companies to tell the county what chemicals were used in the completion of the well within 45 days of the time hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, operations wrapped up. The other recommendation was to collect a fee from gas companies that would be used to hire inspectors who could check local infrastructure and operations to make sure the regulations were being followed. Reed’s concern is that the state, which has just 14 inspectors to cover thousands of wells across the state, will not be able to check the operation before it goes online or very often thereafter. In his statement to the commissioners, Reed applauded the work the Planning Commission has done over the past year saying, “The Planning Commission has achieved a balance between resource development and protection of human health and the environment. Across the U.S. we’re witnessing on an almost daily basis examples of an unchecked gas industry polluting our waters, lands, wildlife and human health.” Reed told the commissioners that the question of how to balance resource extraction with environmental protection is theirs to answer now that the Planning Commission has made its recommendation.

“

continued on page 14

[ Overheard ]

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Oil and gas amendment hearing continued from page 1

“Natural gas production is an intrusive, toxic business and we’re just now starting to see its widespread and pervasive impacts. You, our county commissioners, represent the people and ecosystems of Gunnison County. You have the ability today to put the environment on equal footing with gas developers.” For Crested Butte resident Larry Mosher, “This is an outstandingly ridiculous situation for us to be in, to be trying to keep an industry from poisoning our water and our air and not really being able to do it because we’re stuck relying on the state… I look on the state as not being impartial to our interests.” Mosher attributed a share of the problem with natural gas development to former U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, who effectively made hydraulic fracturing fluids, among other things, exempt from “our primary environmental protection laws.” It is primarily because of those exemptions, Mosher said, that we have a “problem to begin with, this fracking problem… Now we’re in a situation Weston W. Wilson of having to defend ourselves from having an industry come in and inject highly dangerous and toxic chemicals into our ground and we don’t seem to be able to stop them at all.” The next to speak was Weston W. Wilson, an environmental engineer formerly of the Environmental Protection Agency, who gained fame as a whistleblower in the documentary film Gasland, which touched on the EPA’s lack of investigation into the claims gas development was affecting people’s drinking water. Speaking on behalf of citizens’ group Gunnison County United, Wilson told the commissioners and crowd “The operation of modern horizontal drilling and fracking uses a large volume of water… Fracking can have some recycled water, but what we recommend is identifying the estimates of quantity and source of water being used.” Wilson also passed along a recommendation that the public be able to attend site visits to gas facilities and “when possible coordinate those with visits by Colorado oil and gas officials.” He also echoed Mosher’s recommendation for more disclosure. “Let me make one point about the way Colorado now does that,” Wilson said. “The companies are now required to keep on site a record of the chemicals used. But it’s not available to the public; it’s available to medical professionals in case of emergencies.” He recommended the county adopt a requirement similar to what Wyoming has in place that requires chemicals used in fracking be reported at the time they’re injected. “There’s a large problem with this industry and that is identifying a pollution source if ground water is contaminated,” Wilson concluded. “What we recommend is a strict liability… that says if a groundwater well is within a halfmile of a frack well, then that operator is liable.” He also encouraged the county to adopt the state’s “green completion rule” for any well drilled in the county. Green completion, Wilson said, are techniques that would minimize the release of natural gas and oil vapors to cut back on the “volatile organic compounds that are released from the pits.” In a follow-up comment, Wilson said, “To the maximum extent possible fracking fluids should be benign, they should be as ‘green’ as they can be. It wasn’t until the EPA subpoenaed Halliburton that the following week Halliburton came out with a rec-

photos by Alex Fenlon

ipe for green fracking fluid.” Some of the recommendations Wilson had for the commissioners, or at least the goals they envisioned, were repeated throughout the hearing, from a call to conduct more baseline studies to concern over some of the things that might come back to the surface with the produced water, like radioactive material. Concern over the environment ruled the day. Then, just before Brad Burritt stood to share some thoughts from the group Citizens for a Healthy Community, which is encouraging the commissioners to adopt the proposed amendments, and to talk about his sons who represent a sixth generation in Delta County, something out of the ordinary happened. Crested Butte resident Jackson Melnick got up from his chair and, a little hunched over, approached the commissioners’ table with a handful of white roses. He bowed before handing each commissioner a rose, while the crowd chuckled, but he said nothing. Dressed in a dark dinner jacket, he turned with one rose left that he held against his chest with both hands. Then he lay down on the floor in front of the commissioners’ table for the rest of the meeting. Another Crested Butte resident, Jeremy Rubingh, stood up to explain what Melnick had not. “I’m

not going to speak for Jackson here, but this suggests to me that we’re attending the next generation’s funeral or something here. I think that’s an important thing to think about.” Melnick stayed silent through statements made by longtime activist Sue Navy and former Crested Butte councilman and HCCA president Billy Rankin and a half-dozen more until Planning Commission chairman Ramon Reed had nearly completed his comments and was being asked to take a seat by commissioner Hap Channell. Then Melnick screamed out, as if in pain. Channell jumped out of his seat. continued on next page

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New course finalized for Leadville 100 qualifier Between 300 and 400 riders expected [ By Alissa Johnson ]

concerned about the threatening letters between the U.S. Justice Department and the state and towns that support medical marijuana. I support the extension for a year.” Local business owner Steve Ryan told the council he has already made the argument that having marijuana dispensaries in town is a detriment to the local tourism industry. He said the fact the town allows dispensaries has already hurt his property management business directly, with cancelled reservations. “But tonight I am here as a parent,” Ryan stated. “I have a 15-year-old kid and I know some of his peers smoke pot. There is a serious issue with drug use amongst the children of this town. So why allow a drug that is illegal under federal standards to be distributed? That’s not your job as elected officials. Let’s get back to being a family-friendly ski resort.” Deb Hattendorf, who is married to the proprietor of Boomtown, said the council should “let us do our jobs and do it legally as the state has approved.” Her husband, Stephen, again pointed out the harmful side effects of chemical prescription drugs. He also emphasized that the doctor who primarily checks out his patients is careful and detailed.

The Alpine Odyssey, Crested Butte’s Leadville 100 Qualifier, has an official route. For a race announced in early spring, this might seem a little late. But organizers were thrown for a loop when U.S. Energy opted not to allow the original course pass over mine property on Kebler Pass, and plans to reroute on Snodgrass were hindered by the inability to secure private landowner approval. But a new course has been secured, and organizers appeared before the Board of County Commissioners last Tuesday to bring them up to speed. “We think this is the be-all and end-all,” said Dave Ochs, race director. The race starts in Mt. Crested Butte at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 31, with a rolling start down Gothic into the town Crested Butte for a tour down Elk Avenue. From there, riders will head back up Gothic and up Slate River Valley to Paradise Divide and drop down the other side to Gothic Road, returning to Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR). Racers will follow CBMR’s Meander and Columbine trails to complete the first lap. If they complete that lap by 10:15 a.m. they will continue out Washington Gulch, over Paradise Divide, and back down Gothic Road to finish in Mt. Crested Butte. Dave Wiens, technical director of all three Leadville 100 qualifiers, suggested that the new course is better suited to a new race. He also suggested that the 300 to 400 anticipated riders will be easier to manage than the originally anticipated 1,000 participants. “I think we’re gonna start three to four hundred, which for the first year is better than a thousand. If we have to we will, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Wiens said. “[Lake Placid] was much smaller than they expected… the Lake Placid organizing committee was glad the race was smaller because they had issues with their course as well.” About 200 riders have registered for the Crested Butte race so far, but Crested Butte has a contract to host the race for three years and organizers hope it will grow over time. “I want to learn as much as we can from the process this year so it’s smoother next year, and we can minimize road closure times,” commissioner Phil Chamberland said.

continued on page 14

WHERE’S WALL-DO? Climbers ascend Gondwanaland in the Taylor Canyon. photo by Alex Fenlon

County trying Town allows another 12 months of to find balance MMJ dispensaries in Crested Butte Pot-smoking with state over gas Crested Butte: town? drilling regulation [ by Mark Reaman ]

Federal agencies also show concern over possible preemption [ By Seth Mensing ] It’s a simple question related to bigpicture regulation of gas operations: Can the federal or state government adopt a set of regulations for natural gas development that strikes a fair balance between environmental protection and resource extraction in each of Colorado’s 64 counties, from the Eastern Plains to the Western Slope? The answer might not be so simple. After investing months in rewriting the state’s rules for resource development, with buy-in from the counties—including Gunnison County—the industry and other stakeholders, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) would like to think its rules are comprehensive and far reaching. The last of the COGCC’s stated goals in its Strategic Plan is to “demonstrate balanced leadership in the regulation and promotion of oil and gas development in Colorado at the local, state and federal levels.” The commission’s first goal is to “Promote the exploration, development and conservation of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resources.” In places like Weld County, which sits over what is known as the Wattenberg gas field, natural gas production has been identified as a priority. Locally, the production of natural gas falls somewhere below human and environmental health and welfare as priorities. continued on page 12

The three existing medical marijuana dispensaries in Crested Butte will be allowed to operate for another year. The Town Council Monday approved an ordinance extending the permits of the businesses for twelve more months. While some council members had concerns about the dispensaries, the majority felt it was proper to give the operations another year to sell their goods. The ordinance allowing the continuation of the selling of medical marijuana passed 5-1, with councilperson John Wirsing voting against the ordinance and mayor Leah Williams not at the meeting. “This is the least we could do and have them have another year to operate,” acting town manager Bob Gillie told the council. “There is still another one-year fuse to see where the law goes,” added town attorney John Belkin. “I am an owner of a condo in the same complex as the Boomtown dispensary and I am the president of the condo association, so that puts me in a similar position as the council in terms of ramifications from the feds,” said resident Harvey Castro. “I am not the least bit

“

[ Overheard ]

Building Bridges

“Chicks get hotter when they pass you on a bike.” -at a recent bike race

Profile: Chad Belyea

12 | June 24, 2011

Gas controls continued from page 1

Elsewhere the priorities might be the opposite. “Some communities see [gas development] as a more integral part of their future and are therefore more amenable to oil and gas operations,” says Chip Taylor, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc., a statewide organization that lobbies and works for

the interests of local governments. Gunnison County has natural gas resources, too, mostly in the far northwest corner in an area surrounding the North Fork Valley. At least those are the resources that have been explored and developed. According to some maps, the gas-rich Piceance Basin stretches nearly as far south as Highway 50. But Gunnison County also has a lot of other natural resources, like water, wildlife and spectacular

views. An effort has been under way for almost a decade to find a balance between the impacts of industry and a community reliant on tourism and an intact environment. “It’s no surprise that a number of the communities that have substantial tourism economies are concerned with idea of having landscapes covered with wells and ponds and other things associated with gas development,” Taylor says. “Gunnison has some of the more restrictive regulations

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and I can understand why they’re interested in protecting that. But that’s kind of the source of the rub between local regulation and state regulation.” Another source of the rub might be that the county has any regulations related to gas development at all, and then went about amending those regulations last year despite the changes the state had already made. Starting in 2008, the COGCC undertook an effort of its own to revamp its rules related to gas development that involved hundreds of hours of testimony and page upon page of comments from people in support of the industry, or concerned by it. To help government grasp the new rules, the Department of Local Affairs published a handbook called Oil and Gas Regulations: A Guide for Local Governments, which calls the COGCC’s rulemaking a “Herculean effort” and extols the time that was spent listening to stakeholders and working through the complexities of rulemaking with “an industry with vast financial resources.” Two industry men, executives of the Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, wrote the section of the handbook titled “Working with the Industry,” meant for an audience of local government officials who have a gas resource waiting to be developed. The handbook encourages local governments “to get to know the COGCC rules and understand the local government’s rights under the rules. It is then imperative for the local government to participate in the COGCC process to the extent possible.” It goes on to say, “By using the COGCC process and then working with the industry, the local government will work more efficiently to protect the health and safety of its citizens.” However, after using and being a part of the COGCC rulemaking process and then working with industry, Gunnison County still felt the health and welfare of its citizens might be better served by some location-specific regulations. According to the DOLA handbook, local governments can enact their own rules for gas operations if those rules don’t conflict with the rules of a higher authority, like the state or federal governments. Such a conflict is known as preemption. In a 1992 ruling, the Colorado

Supreme Court said, “The purpose of the preemption doctrine is to establish a priority between potentially conflicting laws enacted by various levels of government.” If the laws of a lower government come into “operational conflict” with those of a higher authority, working up from municipal governments to the federal government, the rules of the lower government are preempted. The county has been in the preemption fight before and at the conclusion of Board of County Commissioners of Gunnison County, Colorado v. BDS International LLC in 2006, an appeals court said, “Colorado courts have previously held that the state regulatory scheme does not impliedly preempt all local regulation of oil and gas operations…” Related to federal preemption, the ruling makes it clear that Congress did not intend to preempt all local regulation in the area of oil and gas operations. The prevailing regulations are now the focus of another lawsuit that was brought against the county in district court earlier this month. As for the existing regulations the suit takes aim at, Taylor says the county “touched on a couple of areas the industry is very sensitive about, mainly the disclosure requirements and the riparian setbacks.” The issue of setbacks from water bodies is what brought the county’s Regulations for Oil and Gas Development to the table last summer, after SG Interests requested that the county amend its rules to more closely mirror the state’s, which were more lenient when it came to the proximity of a gas operation to water. And while the amendment process that ensued tightened regulations where the state already claimed jurisdiction it also beefed up the county’s reporting requirements. Although many of the amended regulations run alongside the state’s in many ways, the county’s process still adds to the time it takes to permit approvals, and that runs counter to Objective #2 in the COGCC’s Strategic Plan, which is “Expedite the processing of oil and gas well drilling, recompletion and disposal/enhanced recovery well permit applications.” There has also been some concern raised by the federal agencies related to the county’s regulations. continued on next page

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BOCC splits decision to okay local flowback pits Channell questions safety of open air pits [ BY SETH MENSING ]

MUSIC MAGIC: Drew Emmitt and Keller Williams put their musical powers together to create a unique concert experience during Bluegrass in Paradise. photo by Kurt Reise

Economic Stolen sleds found on Craigslist Local police team up with development Pueblo County to find snowmobiles stolen in June roadshow makes rounds [ BY SETH MENSING ]

Coming soon to a professional group near you [ BY ALISSA JOHNSON ]

Gunnison County commissioner Paula Swenson and Housing Authority executive director KT Gazunis presented a dry run of the Gunnison County Economic Development Plan roadshow on Tuesday, July 12. They met with the Board of County Commissioners and county staff, outlining the plan’s five main goals as well as strategies and actions for achieving them—and measurements of success. The Economic Development Plan, which grew out of Governor Hickenlooper’s Bottom’s Up Economic Development Initiative, identifies five key goals: encourage the growth of existing businesses, diversify the economic base, increase tourism activity, create a more business-friendly climate by getting rid of bureaucratic red tape, and create new, higher-paying jobs. “As you know we fast-tracked this between March and May [to meet the governor’s timeline] and are waiting on the subgroup to come back to us with recommendations,” Swenson said. A working group led by Gunnison Chamber of Commerce executive director Tammy Scott and Crested Butte-Mt. Crested Butte Chamber of Commerce executive director Richard Bond will create the strategy for implementing the plan. CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

The mystery about snowmobiles gone missing from the Kebler Pass winter trailhead has been solved, thanks to the vigilance of one victim, who found his sled for sale on Craigslist. It was the weekend of June 12, after snow fell throughout the spring, that three snowmobiles went missing and two others were inexplicably gone the following week. “This is happening when the trailhead is moving every week,” Mt. Crested Butte police ofﬁcer Brad Phelps said, explaining how one of the victims had moved his snowmobile and a friend’s at the time to a trailhead farther up the road. “The next time they go up there, the sleds aren’t at Splain’s Gulch. And they had the serial numbers and registration, so we listed them both as stolen.” According to Phelps, leads were hard to come by at ﬁrst and the one that turned up turned out to be nothing. Then the case broke open on Independence Day. “They called me on the Fourth of July. One of victims saw his and his buddy’s sled on Craigslist,” Phelps said. “Both of them were in the same ad.” The snowmobiles were for sale in Pueblo. Phelps contacted the Pueblo County

Sheriff’s Office, which paid a visit to the would-be seller of the stolen snowmobiles and found even more in the man’s yard. “When [the officers] are in the yard with the stolen snowmobiles, they see two other snowmobiles sitting there and decide to run the registrations. It turns out they were both registered to addresses in Crested Butte, but they hadn’t been reported as stolen.” Another sled was found in the Pueblo city limits and in the police department’s possession. According to Phelps, groups from Pueblo who knew one another came to the Gunnison Valley on two occasions to take seven, possibly eight, snowmobiles. So far five of those sleds have been recovered and a case is being built against no fewer than four individuals in their 20s and 30s. “This hasn’t all played out yet,” Phelps said. “Right now we’re unsure of how many people we’re going to charge.” Once the charges are filed, the case will come back to Gunnison County Court. Beyond the stolen snowmobiles, Phelps adds that this past winter had more petty theft and vandalism of snowmobiles than he has seen in the last 16 years. “That’s our standard of living and it makes sense to us, even though I know it doesn’t always make sense to other people,” Phelps said of the snowmobiles parked at the Kebler Trailhead. “But we’d all appreciate it that if as soon as the Kebler Pass Road is cleared, the snowmobiles go away.”

The Gunnison County Commissioners voted 2 to 1 Tuesday, July 12 to approve two separate applications for centralized containment ponds, or flowback pits, that will serve a growing number of natural gas operations around the North Fork Valley. But the approvals weren’t without some reservations from all three board members. Gunnison Energy Corporation (GEC) and SG Interests I (SG) both filed permit applications earlier this year to build the facilities, which would hold produced water that comes out of the ground throughout the life of a gas well. The so-called Hotchkiss Water Storage Facility being proposed by GEC consists of two ponds, just like the facilities being proposed by SG, and would hold nearly 13 million gallons in the larger pond and 5.7 million gallons in the smaller pond. SG has applied for a permit to build two facilities with a total capacity of about 18 million gallons. Commissioner Hap Channell, as a preface to his vote against the approval of both applications, said he was familiar enough with the applications and the public’s response to it to “struggle with these [applications], big time.” He also knows the county’s standard for business when it comes to natural gas development, as it is laid out in the county’s own regulations for oil and gas development, which SG has challenged in court. One section of the regulations was particularly hard for Channell to get past when considering the flowback pit applications. The section requires that oil and gas operations not cause “significant degradation” to wildlife and wildlife habitat, recreation and water resources. “We’ve heard extensively from the public. That includes the agricultural producers, sportsmen, environmentalists, tourism interests and just generally concerned citizens who tended to almost unanimously challenge the industry’s point of view that these pits will not cause significant degradation...,” Channell said Once gas wells have been forced open using the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing and then start producing gas, an unknown amount of water will come back up with the gas, the companies say.

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CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

[ Overheard ]

Profile: John Malensek

“Snodgrass on Sunday was like a powder day for mountain biking.”

Nature Notes

14 | July 15, 2011

Crested Butte News

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Flowback continued from page 1

But with the water, according to both companies and consultants hired for the county, comes some portion of the fracking fluid. The more porous the rock being drilled, the less fluid is recovered. In the Mancos Shale that is now being drilled into areas around Paonia Reservoir, industry officials estimate that as much as 70 percent of the fluid comes back to the surface while the rock might never be recovered. Channell also mentioned the industry’s failures in other areas of the country, where drinking water has been contaminated and land destroyed or changed forever. On the day of the meeting, the national media had reported on several industry faux pas, including an episode in West Virginia where hydraulic fracturing fluid had been spread over a section of experimental forest two years before most of the trees in the forest died. He doubted the safety of the open air pits and said he would prefer to see the water stored in injection wells, as it is now, instead of bringing it to the surface to store. “There is a difference between taking questionable toxic materials and injecting them versus putting them on the surface in an open pit, even though the pit might be engineered to the Ts,” Channell said. “I personally find it very difficult to think that an open pits system of the type and size that we’re talking

about is not threatening.” Before saying that he would be voting against approval of the applications, Channell said, “There are some places on earth that might have higher value than development. I think that’s a struggle that those of us in Gunnison County are having, and not just with regard to natural gas development.” Agreeing that the pits could pose a risk of degrading the environment, commissioner Phil Chamberland pointed out that the containment ponds would eliminate a large share of the estimated 60,000 truck trips necessary to service a well throughout its development. He also called out SG for trying to have the county’s regulations thrown out in court, saying “We do have the right to balance the protection of our natural environment with the development of the natural resource.” The deadlock was broken by commissioner Paula Swenson, who had faith in the review process carried out by the Planning Commission and agreed that it was a very difficult decision. A resolution to approve the planning commissioner’s recommendation with its conditions on both applications was adopted by the commissioners 2 to 1. With the permits in hand, both applicants are required to complete all of the application submittal requirements before starting work on the pits. Once the companies have acquired the permits, they will have one year to start the projects and another year to complete them.

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FLOWER POWER: Jari Kirkland cruises through the wildflowers during the Powerade Pinnacle Race Series race on Friday, July 29 on Crested Butte Mountain. photo by Alex Fenlon

County continues hearing on gas rules CB real estate sales starting to look up this year Decision will have to wait until at least January [ BY SETH MENSING ]

List prices dropping [ BY ALISSA JOHNSON ]

Real estate sales in Crested Butte appear to be gaining momentum. Sotheby’s real estate agent Channing Boucher reported in his July newsletter that 101 homes and condos have sold in the north end of the valley this year, from Crested Butte South to Mt. Crested Butte. That’s roughly 30 percent higher than this time last year, and includes a few surprises, like high-end home sales in the town of Crested Butte. It’s a sign, Boucher says, that the market is self-correcting. But predicting what will happen next is anybody’s guess: the market is drastically different from area to area, and for the most part, sale prices continue to decline. “The reason there have been so many sales is that prices went down. Price opportunities came out that were super low, and it caused people to buy. People are snagging foreclosures… They were ﬁnally like, ‘No sh*t, let’s buy. This [price] is ridiculous,’” said Boucher. CONTINUED ON PAGE 14

Gunnison County and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) are cooperating to work out a solution to a turf battle that could beneﬁt every natural-gas– containing county in the state, according to county ofﬁcials. But they told a capacity crowd at a continued public hearing on Tuesday, August 2, a compromise cannot be rushed and proposed amendments to the county’s Regulations for Oil and Gas Operations would have to wait until conversations with

the state have run their course. The BOCC again continued the hearing over the matter, this time until January of 2012. The public hearing was a follow-up to a meeting in June when the commissioners heard from expert witnesses and people in the community who were concerned about the practices being employed more commonly to get the gas out of areas surrounding the North Fork Valley and Paonia Reservoir. Although many of the faces and many of the concerns hadn’t changed much since the previous public hearing, the crowd’s support for the tighter regulations was almost unanimous, without any industry representatives in attendance. CONTINUED ON PAGE 8

Area businesses enjoying summer season success July was a trip back in time, and hopefully a look at the future, for some [ BY SETH MENSING ] It’s well after the Monday morning commuter rush and there’s still a steady line of seven or eight cars working their way through the stop sign at Belleview on Hwy. 135. Farther on, a solid wall of parked cars scatters

a family trying to go into the Alpineer and Elk Ave. looks like a two-lane parking lot with appropriately placed sidewalks and bike lanes. But the real action is happening inside. With a French knife in his hand, Spencer Hestwood, co-owner and chef at the Ginger Café, cubes chicken breast

“

while there’s a lull in the tempo of the kitchen. “It’s been good,” he says. “I shouldn’t be cutting chicken right now.” There was a lot to do. CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

[ Overheard ]

Chat With Ethan

Talking with Lance

“Crested Butte is like summer camp for Texans.” A typical Elk Avenue scene from this summer. photo by Alex Fenlon

8 | August 5, 2011

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Oil and gas

continued from page 1

Only Joe Sperry, a landowner in the North Fork Valley, expressed some concern that the county’s regulations might impede his ability to develop natural gas on his property. He was assured that he still had time to have his concerns heard by the county before the amendments were adopted. Otherwise, the crowd was eager to have the regulations adopted and cautious about endorsing a conversation between the county and the state that might erode the amendments proposed by the Planning Commission. Those amendments would revamp the county’s rules governing oil and gas development in a way that the Planning Commission hoped would increase the protections for the public health and welfare as well as wildlife and the scenic values the area has come to be known for. As he has throughout the process, High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) public lands director Matt Reed commended the Planning Commission for all of their work and for the amendments they’ve proposed. He said he, along with many others at the meeting, would only add a few things. Reed’s first suggested improvement is one that was taken up by the commissioners after hearing consistently from many members of the community that the county needs to find a way to inspect the drilling and development operations to make sure all the rules are being followed. Mostly, the commissioners have been asked to charge the gas developers to cover the inspection costs. In his explanation of the conversation between the county and the COGCC, county manager Matthew Birnie acknowledged that the state has admitted to “having a capacity issue” and cannot inspect every gas well site in the state. He also addressed the concerns about local inspection and how, if the county is patient with the COGCC, the county could ul-

timately get the authority it wants. “I think it’s important for people to understand that it is actually not legal for the county to charge the companies and hire inspectors to inspect the drilling operations. That’s in statute,” Birnie said. “However the state does have the ability and the authority to delegate its inspection authority to the county. And that is one of the biggest issues from the county perspective that we are working on with the state . . . to convince them that that is a good idea for their permit conditions as well as the county’s.” Having the authority to inspect the operations could have a “significant improvement in our ability to regulate and monitor the operation of these wells,” Birnie said. In addition to making his own recommendations about the proposed amendments, Reed commended the Planning Commission, members of industry and the public for working through the process of crafting “outstanding” regulations. “Week after week these folks worked in an open and democratic process to craft the document that is before you now,” Reed said. “ I would hate to see these regulations whittled down or compromised behind closed doors and conversations with the state. Given the natural gas industry’s proven track record of pollution and the lack of meaningful state and federal oversight, Gunnison County deserves strong safeguards.” Throughout the public hearing, several community members returned to Reed’s concern about the opportunity for the state to take back some of the authority in the planning commissioner ’s proposed regulations without some public involvement. Birnie addressed concerns “that the county is backing away from its responsibilities on permitting or ensuring that this industry practices safely in the county,” by saying, “I want everyone to know that is not the focus or the direction of these conversations. Most of these things that we’re talking about can happen with or without or proposed amended

regulations. If we are successful, which we don’t know if we will be, we believe that we will have a stronger hand and a stronger position in this field because we will have dealt with some of the issues and the potential vulnerabilities of county permitting.” The second addition Reed and HCCA have recommended for the proposed amendments would require operators to disclose the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process within 45 days of completing the fracking operations. Dr. Theo Colborn, a nationally known figure in the natural gas debate who did the field research for her doctorate in the streams of Gunnison County and is now the president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, had the same recommendation. She asked that the commissioners have the operators provide “the amount of fluid and its liquid and chemical composition that was actually injected under ground and the amount of that fluid returned to the surface. “Already there are many completed wells in the watershed of the North Fork River,” she said. “There are no records available of how much fracking fluid was recovered from any of those wells. Early on though, there was concern because one of those wells was reported to have had no flowback.” She said that since there are no agencies—federal or state— keeping track of the amount of fracking fluid recovered from gas wells, “It is only logical that Gunnison County should do so.” Colborn pointed out that even though gas companies say just a small percentage of the fracking fluid that is injected contains toxic chemicals, “in aggregate, there could be many millions of gallons of hazardous wastewater sitting in the North Fork of the Gunnison River watershed. This water is not only contaminated with all of the toxic chemicals used to facilitate fracking, but also many toxic native chemicals that will be mobilized by the fracking process … releasing chemicals that would ordinarily never come to the surface.” continued on next page

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“Every stone that needs to be turned has been turned” [ By Alissa Johnson and Mark Reaman ]

FROM THE ROOF OF THE WORLD: The monks of the Gaden Shartse Monastery performed sacred dances and chants at the Center for the Arts on Friday, August 12. photo by Alex Fenlon

Gunnison Differing views expressed at gas group grapples drilling moratorium discussion Industry takes the first seats with climate change in area [ By Seth Mensing ]

Responding to climate change whether you believe in it or not [ By Alissa Johnson ]

A new climate-change working group orchestrated by the Nature Conservancy is seeking to understand the impacts of climate change in Gunnison County. According to Betsy Neely, senior conservation planner with the Nature Conservancy, it’s part of a deliberate shift in strategy. The Nature Conservancy, which has secured 18 conservation easements in Gunnison County, believes it can have a bigger impact on climate change if it expands its focus from individual parcels of land to landscapes. “Climate change is not just going to affect our little parcels of land scattered across the landscape, it’s going to affect all of us across jurisdictional boundaries,” Neely said at a presentation to the Board of County Commissioners on August 9. According to Neely, in the Southwest United States changes in temperature have been linked to significant ecological changes: greater frequency of wildfire, a spring runoff one to two weeks earlier and drought linked to large-scale die-off of piñon trees. Gunnison was selected as one of four pilot landscapes in each of the Four Corners states, where the Nature Conservancy is bringing together decision makers and land management organizations to address how climate change might affect their landscape and how to respond. continued on page 9

In discussing a moratorium that could limit new natural gas-related activity in the county, the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners saw a show of force from the industry responsible for the development in the North Fork Valley at a meeting on Tuesday, August 16. The rare appearance by such a large number of people who work in the industry brought out landowners, business owners, engineers and executives who aired frustrations about what they see as an attempt to stifle an industry that, for them, is essential. For Lance Rundle, owner of Hotchkissbased Rundle Construction Inc., the meeting was an opportunity to show the commissioners and the county staff that any moratorium would have a tangible negative impact on the economy in the North Fork Valley and beyond at the most inopportune time. He said he wanted to “give the industry a face.” At the same time, those who turned out to oppose the natural gas industry or encourage stricter regulation of it worked hard to be heard and repeat their concerns about the potential for harm by an industry operating in an otherwise intact environment. They too wanted to show that the industry could have an equally tangible impact on the economy in the North Fork, should something go

wrong. Kevin McGruther, president of the Crested Butte Farmers Market, spent the minutes before the meeting telling anyone from the industry who would listen they were “prostitutes” and “whores” who sold themselves for a profit. “Look it up,” he said of the phrases. “Don’t make eye contact with him,” a woman in the audience said. “He’ll start talking to you.” The battle lines were being drawn. Commission chairman Hap Channell tried to clarify the intent of the meeting, explaining that it wasn’t a public hearing and instead “was set up to have a discussion amongst ourselves, really. “On the other hand, when there’s an agenda item it’s been a Gunnison County tradition to hear public comments,” he said. It was a welcome invitation to those who had traveled to the meeting from the North Fork. But first the commissioners needed to meet in an executive session with county attorney David Baumgarten and county manager Matthew Birnie, along with counsel Barbara Green by phone, to discuss the options they had to stem the number of permits being issued under its oil and gas regulations while ongoing conversations develop with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC). continued on page 10

As we head into the shoulder season and the amount of visitors to Crested Butte decreases, the valley could see a bump— a serious bump—in numbers on Tuesday, August 23. That’s when the USA Pro Cycling Challenge hits the valley. Estimates for the amount of people expected for the event range from 1,000 to more than 30,000. Being a first-year event, it is anybody’s guess at the moment. Now, you would think that another bike event coming to town—just more dudes on bikes—wouldn’t be a big deal, right? Crested Butte has seen that all summer, with Ride the Rockies and the Alpine Odyssey. Not quite. This peloton, which will include every rider who stood on the final podium of this year’s Tour de France, will arrive in style. It will be led by five Colorado State Patrol Cars and several other lead vehicles. Another 120 team vehicles will follow, and the entire entourage will be covered by live television crews, some in helicopters. And when the show reaches Almont? Every road in Crested Butte— including the racecourse along Highway 135—will close. The only way anyone is missing out on this kind of action is by heading into the backcountry. It’s taken the work of the Local Organizing Committee (LOC), Crested Butte Mountain Resort, the towns of Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, the Tourism Association and a host of unnamed and under-recognized people to make this thing happen. And while no one knows exactly how many spectators to expect, one thing is for sure: the north end of the valley is ready. “We feel we’ve done a good job getting the word out. We’re ready to open the doors,” said LOC co-chair Aaron Huckstep. “We just don’t know how many people are going to come.” The stage stats speak for themselves: It’s the first-stage finish in the highest altitude course ever created. Racers will tackle 8,000 feet of vertical climbing to get here from Salida over Monarch Pass, and then grind up the only uphill finish in the race. When they make it to the finish, they’ll find 365-degree views of some of Colorado’s finest country.

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continued on page 8

[ Overheard ] -from last week’s go-getter

Profile: Aaron Huckstep

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Gas drilling moratorium discussed cerns about the potential impacts to ground water, Rundle says, “We drink out of the same well The county entered that conversation with as everybody else. Why would we want to mess the intention of working out the wrinkles in the with the water? We live over there. People think lines of communication between the state and we are over there to rape and pillage and that’s the county and as a result delayed the adoption just not the case.” of an amended set of regulations proposed by the And then there was the hard line from Robcounty Planning Commission. bie Guinn, vice president of SG Interests, which And while the meeting wasn’t supposed to is currently suing the county over its claim to be a public hearing, it wasn’t just about the reg- regulatory authority of the gas industry. Guinn ulations being considered by the county and it told the commissioners flatly, “We think it would wasn’t just about merits or dangers of the indus- be an abuse for the county to refuse to process try. It turned out to be about all of those things. any oil and gas permit applications. We think After a brief introduction from Eric Sanford, the pending ordinance doctrine would at a miniland manager for SG Interests I Ltd., which has mum allow you to apply the pending ordinances a large and growing presence in the basin, the to any new applications. But any type of moratolist of landowners stood to tell the commission- rium would be an abuse of your jurisdiction.” ers how the gas industry has helped them ride The pending ordinance doctrine is one alout the hard times and is giving many of them ternative the commissioners alluded to in their the opportunity to pass their family ranches on agenda listing and could allow the commissionto the next generation. ers to delay permit applications that would be “At the last meeting you were showed one affected by a proposed rule change. But the comperspective on this issue and the reason you have missioners haven’t committed to taking that, or a room full today is to show you that any, approach. there is another perspective related to Trying to draw attention to a midthis issue,” Sanford said. “We wanted dle ground that both sides of the gas to show you a little bit of balance today debate could occupy, High Country and that there are people who support Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) executive this project. We wanted to show you director Dan Morse told the commisthat there are people who are directly sioners and the crowd, “We are all on I appreciate affected by a moratorium, or if you the same side, which is trying to find a clean water make it impossible to permit in this way to balance our economy and our to drink and county.” environment. We want to make sure grow my crops we have a job and stay healthy.” Kevin Swisher, operations superintendent for Gunnison Energy CorHe explained that gas develwith... poration (GEC) in Delta, told the comopment is just one industry in the missioners that his office supports 15 county’s economy, sharing space with Alma Roberts coal, tourism, agriculture and ranchfull-time employees in the summer North Fork Valley and a half-dozen interns from Western ing. “All of these are very important Organic Farmer State College. to our economy and all of these are GEC president Brad Robinson says subject to common sense regulations, the 50 people the company directly so we move together on the best path employs full-time can be multiplied forward. four-fold to get an idea for its true potential for “To take that year of thoughtful deliberation employment. and say we can’t apply those new regulations David Ludlom, executive director of the would be a disservice to all the hard work that trade group Western Colorado Oil and Gas As- has gone into them,” he continued. Morse went sociation, told the commissioners his group was on to say HCCA was asking for a moratorium on opposed to any kind of moratorium because “it “accepting new applications only, and that’s an would be a detriment to the operators here in important nuance.” Gunnison County,” explaining that some operaHis suggestion wouldn’t try to stop work tors need to get service contracts signed up to a on the ground, but would let the county and the year in advance. state figure out “who can regulate what,” and the Robinson had a similar concern, saying his “year-long process can still be honored and … we company only anticipated drilling two wells next can go ahead and sensibly regulate all industries year. Losing a drill rig contract because of a mor- in the county.” He didn’t want the county to have atorium could set his schedule back, which isn’t to review “applications it isn’t ready for. Then productive in a short drilling season. when the time is right we can go ahead and start Dixie Jacobs-Luke and her brother Jake at- processing new applications under new regulatended alongside Joe Sperry, Gary Volk, Da- tions that were thought out by a group of people vid Clinger and a handful of other landowners here in this county, and do it right.” who have leased surface use of their property to Others in the audience returned to their congas companies developing the gas underneath, cerns about the industry and the practices it emechoed a similar refrain separately. ploys to develop the gas. Michael Ward, a 32-year “Like many of the ranching families in the veteran of the Forest Service turned private conRagged Mountain community, we are fourth tractor, wanted people to know gas development generation ranchers,” Jacobs-Luke said, telling has been going on in the North Fork Valley since the commissioner she and her neighbors had re- the 1950s with a few failures and a lot of success. cently watched a fifth generation of rancher show He gave kudos to the operators for their work. their livestock at the Delta County fair. But former planning commissioner Richard “These kids, and their livestock, depend on Karas just wanted the commissioners to stay on us to be stewards of the land, so they can con- task and consider the moratorium. ”I think it tinue our tradition,” she said. As Jacobs-Luke would be very helpful to know at some point, went on, she told a story about how the livestock if not right now, what strategies are available to from the community’s ranches are sought after you, so that you can continue your effort of workfor their nutritional value and upbringing. ing with [COGCC] without being inundated, poThen Alma Roberts stood to speak and if he tentially with new applications,” he continued. hadn’t identified himself as an organic farmer As the commissioners moved to continue from the North Fork Valley, you’d have thought the conversation until the middle of September he was from a ranching family. He used some of when Channell said they “could get a more inthe same language the ranchers used to describe depth analysis from staff” on the pending ordihis connection to the land. nance doctrine and a host of other items related But his concerns were about the industry, to the permitting process, Karas cringed at the not for it, and he encouraged the commissioners thought of permit applications flooding into the to slow the encroachment of industry. “I under- community development department while all stand those of you who are here in support of the various options for a moratorium are disthis are in support of this development because cussed in meetings. you need the revenue to feed their families and “What’s going to stop them?” he said after pay their mortgages and live. That’s important. the meeting. At the same time, I appreciate clean water to Channell said Baumgarten could present his drink and grow my crops with and clean air to analysis sometime “between early September breathe.” and late September… so keep your eye out for When asked at the next break about the con- upcoming agendas.” CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

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Schmidt out of mayoral race; Huck to be next mayor Deli impressed with Huck. Huck respects Deli. Good times. [ BY MARK REAMAN ]

HOOP DREAMS: Kids of all ages gave hula hooping a try at the annual People’s Fair this past weekend on Elk Avenue. photo by Kurt Reise

Gas company trying to put down roots in North Fork “We’re going to be here for a long time” [ BY SETH MENSING ] A low whistle droned from a small metal shed at one end of a well pad on the 2,400-acre Rock Creek Ranch in the foothills of the Raggeds, 10 miles north of Paonia Reservoir. “That’s what the bosses call the sound of money,” said SG Interests I Ltd. operations land manager Eric Sanford with a slight smile. Just about everything around us related to the expanding gas development was under his watch. That whistling sound was natural gas rushing to a wellhead under pressure. It has the same ring to the landowners, who own almost 19,000 surface acres overlying the Bull Mountain Unit and sign surface use agreements with companies that pay to put well pads and pipelines across their property. And it rings for the governments that cash the company’s severance and tax checks, including Gunnison County. But in communities where natural gas development has run headlong into opposition from concerned citizens and advocacy groups in the face of unanswered questions about the environmental consequences of development, that whistling sound has also been a call to arms. And despite the rally against it, the industry, backed by federal and state laws, is growing while it moves ahead. Rock Creek Ranch I Ltd. is a nearly 2,400-acre spread owned by Russell Gordy, who made his fortune in oil. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Bear Ranch sweetens land exchange deal for trail users across Kebler Pass Latest land trade proposal would throw in access to Jumbo Mountain near Paonia [ BY SETH MENSING ] After watching hopes fade last year of a land trade that would have consolidated two halves of an expansive property between Kebler Pass Road and Paonia Reservoir, Bear Ranch representatives came to the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners looking for an endorsement of a new, much sweeter deal on Tuesday, September 6. The new offer, presented by former Crested Butte mayor Tom Glass, now of the Western Land Group, puts coveted public access to Jumbo Mountain, just outside the town of Paonia, on the table. That is in addition to the 911-acre Sapinero parcel near Blue Mesa and 80 acres in the middle of Dinosaur National Monument that were part of the proposed land legislation last year. In exchange, Bear Ranch owner and billionaire Bill Koch still wants more than 1,800 acres of public land that bisects his exclusive mountain property bordering the Ragged Mountains all to himself. The ﬁrst round of legislation aimed at consolidating the ranch died last year after its congressional sponsor, John Salazar, failed to win reelection. But the

legislation’s death may not have been as dramatic had it not been for former High Country News publisher Ed Marston, who has characterized the land exchange as Koch’s taking of public land without offering enough to the public in return. That perception was addressed late in the meeting Tuesday, when Trails Commissioner Joellen Fonken pointed out that the land trade is contingent upon the removal of all existing public access along Deep Creek—once the improvements laid out in the agreement are completed—and the precedent that would set. “The Trails Commission has not voted on this…you’re setting a precedent if the Trails Commission recommends that a trail easement go away that has been public domain forever. I want that on the table,” Fonken said. “Are we going to start setting ourselves up for other people coming? — because I can think of some other places.” County manager Matthew Birnie suggested that loss of public access was why Bear Ranch and Koch had come back with such a strong proposal the second time around, “because [the public] is giving up public access. It’s not one that has been used a lot and there isn’t a trailhead there, per se. But it is a beautiful trail. CONTINUED ON PAGE 10

The race for Crested Butte mayor appears to be over before it started. Current Crested Butte councilman and former mayor Jim Schmidt is withdrawing from the race, leaving Aaron Huckstep as the only candidate. “I think Huck and I would work very well together on the Town Council,” explained Schmidt. “We have spent several hours together discussing the direction of the town and I am comfortable having him in that position. I was very impressed with his work on the USA Pro Challenge bike race and I think he will add a good voice to the council. So I am withdrawing from that race.” Schmidt was elected to the Town Council two years ago, so he has two years left in his current term. “I had a lot of people thank me for stepping up to run for mayor again but I think in the big picture, this will work great,” Schmidt said. In a letter to the community (see page 3), Schmidt also said he was hoping a woman would have stepped up to run for council, but that won’t happen this year. Huckstep looks forward to working with Schmidt on the council. “Jim’s lengthy record of public service to our town deserves a signiﬁcant amount of respect. After speaking with Jim at length regarding the issues he and I believe are important to town, I am hopeful and encouraged that we will be allies on the council,” commented Huckstep. “I feel strongly that we can accomplish more working together than campaigning against one another. His decision, one that I’m certain was not easy, will allow the town’s citizens to beneﬁt from having both of us on the council. I look forward to working with him on the issues that may arise for the council over the course of the next two years.” “People still need to ask good questions of all the candidates and hold people to their promises,” said Schmidt, “but in the end, I think I’ve been an effective Town Council member and can bring some history and perspective to decisions. A lot of issues recycle themselves and it can be good to have some history of the reasoning about why things ended up the way they did.” Four people are running for three seats on the council. Glenn Michel, David Owen, Kevin McGruther and Shaun Matusewicz are all vying for a seat. The ballots will be mailed to voters in mid-October and must be returned by Election Day, Tuesday, November 1.

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[ Overheard ]

Titans’ Soccer

Profile: Mark Goldberg

“What’s a little pooey for a couple months a year?” -Fritz the Atomic Comic

6 | September 9, 2011

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Bull Mountain continued from page 1

He is now principal owner of SG Interests, which has staked a large claim in the North Fork Valley, where as much as 10 trillion cubic feet of gas is said to be trapped in coal and shale formations. Getting that much gas will take time. According to the Bureau of Land Management, which manages the majority of mineral rights in the unit, any individual well in the Bull Mountain Unit might operate for 30 years and it could take 20 years to develop the entire field, putting gas companies like SG on the land for the next half-century. Consequently, the company is making itself at home, Sanford says, by taking over the Rock Creek ranch house for a field office and cleaning up the property and roads wherever possible. Next door to Rock Creek is the Falcon Seaboard Ranch, owned by Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst, who founded an energy and investments company in Houston with the Falcon Seaboard name in 1981. Now Dewhurst is considered by many to be the wealthiest man in Texas politics. “We do view corridor studies, so he doesn’t have to see anything from his cabin,” Sanford said, pointing out that a new pipeline would cross the Falcon Seaboard property. “We do that for a lot of landowners and not because it’s required by any regulation.” For the most part, SG’s other neighbors are descendants of ranch families that have been in the North Fork for a hundred years, like Joe Sperry or Dixie Luke and her two brothers. Others have been around a shorter time but

don’t plan on going anywhere. Sanford says of the relationship, “We’re going to be here for a long time. The ranchers aren’t going anywhere. Even though we’ve got a right to [develop the gas], it doesn’t make my life any easier when landowners don’t trust us.” So, he says, the company works hard to make sure the development also gives the ranches something they want: improved roads or fences, cattle guards, and planting grass in re-vegetated areas instead of sage. From the top of a hill we can see a commercial lodge where SG puts its crews when they’re in town, keeping the beds full through otherwise slow times, while a pump running on a crude methane-compatible engine clangs in the background. If the pump were in a residential area, Sanford said, it would be quieter. Asked about the potential for wells and pads being developed in close proximity to peoples’ homes, Sanford blamed those kinds of situations on “publicly traded, multi-national companies,” whose only concern is the bottom line. “SG Interests is a family owned business, owned by a billionaire, yeah. But on my first day at work he told me, ‘Eric, the only thing that can ruin me is an environmental disaster. Don’t let that happen.’” Sanford, who has been working for SG Interests for three years, is slight of build and one of the youngest people in the company’s public entourage. As he says, he’s one of the only vegans you’re likely to meet in the oil and gas industry. His bosses call him a hippie and pick on his white sunglasses.

The pipeline installation in the Bull Mountain unit. photo by Seth Mensing Prior to working for SG, Sanford was an attorney in several capacities throughout the southwestern part of Colorado and he’s used to being disliked. Once, while in court, a client spat on him. So the reaction to his presence from people opposed to the natural gas industry who see him in public meetings, or at the natural foods store in Paonia picking up a vegetarian lunch, isn’t unnatural. Sanford doesn’t see himself, like some people do, as someone who helps a billionaire rape the land and spoil the water and air downcurrent. For him, natural gas is the future of the domestic energy supply and he’s helping to usher in a new era. At the start of a recent tour of the Bull Mountain Unit for members of the media, Sanford pointed out a sign for the West Elk Scenic Byway. Across the highway is the

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Jacobs 29-1 well, with a small wellhead and several 12-foot green condensate tanks instead of the 20-foot-tall standard, set up on a ledge above the road. Driving by, you might never notice it. Sanford says the height was restricted by regulations that go along with building next to a Scenic Byway, but SG would have built them to blend in anyway. Not every well pad looks like that, but not every one needs to. Sanford described the McIntyre 11-90-14 #1 well, as “what a typical well would look like.” The wellhead itself doesn’t look like much, just a heavy pipe that comes out of the ground and then, after a few feet, goes back in. Since the gas comes out of the well under pressure, there’s no sound from equipment running. Sanford said it cost $3 million to $5 million just to get the well in the ground, and the ground shows the scars of that effort. The surrounding hillside had been cut away to level the site, but was already green with grass. If the well ever slowed its production and needed to be re-stimulated, with another round of hydraulic fracturing, the earth around the well pad would be pushed back; otherwise the site is mostly ready to handle the equipment to do the job. In 2008, SG submitted a proposal to the BLM to develop as many as 60 separate well pads in the Bull Mountain Unit, with a total of 150 wells drilled. With directional drilling technology, Sanford says, some wells will go horizontally for 3,000 feet in any direction. Two new wells are currently being planned and when they’re done next year, only a fraction of the unit will have been developed. After a well is drilled, pro-

duced water comes to the surface. A couple of derricks bob on the horizon, clearing water out of the way so gas can get to the wellhead. This could take months or years and sometimes the water seems to flow forever, Sanford said. But eventually the flow from most wells will turn to gas. With the water comes hydrocarbons and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Looking up at the pipes venting the condensate tanks at the well head, you can see the distortion of light that comes through the fumes, like heat rising from a road. Aside from what happens underground, VOC emissions are something the environmental community is watching and is concerned about, since several VOCs have been linked to effects on human health. Sanford says the gas being produced in the North Fork Valley is relatively clean and doesn’t bring a lot of VOCs to the surface with it. In an email, he added, “To this point, regulated emissions in the Bull Mountain Unit…have not risen to the level that would require a state air quality permit.” But after all of the dirty work is done, the vented VOCs and a sprawling network of roads, pads and pipelines are all that’s left of the development. The pipelines that feed gas from the growing number of well pads to the Bull Mountain Pipeline, two years after going in the ground, are covered in knee-high grass and stand out as wide, light green lines down sage-speckled hillsides. Another is being installed. For now, the pipelines extend far beyond the lines of well pads, waiting for what will come.

Meridian Lake Park residents

the Mt. Crested Butte Water & sanitation district will be performing their annual Water Main FLUsHinG as follows: Dr. Andrew Adamich Optometrist

420 N. Main Street, Gunnison • www.abbaeyecare.com

september 19-23, 2011 Please contact the District Office at 349-7575 with any questions.

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Court calls county gas regs ‘valid’ in SG lawsuit

County refunds Gunnison Energy Corporation $20,000 [ BY SETH MENSING ]

HEAD’EM UP, MOVE’EM OUT: Sam Smith lays down the law in the corral while helping load 46 horses in need of rescue. photo by Kurt Reise

Bus service Local group saves 60 horses from will be free and slaughter, puts spotlight on treatment “Horses are not cattle” more frequent this winter [ BY SETH MENSING ]

Airfare sales a little slow [ BY ALISSA JOHNSON ]

Bus service between Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte will increase to eight trips a day for the upcoming ski season— that’s two more daily trips than last winter. Even better? Riding will be free. The Gunnison Valley Rural Transportation Authority (RTA) has restored its fund balance, allowing it to provide a more robust transportation service in the valley. “The schedule has been adjusted to try to accommodate the majority of our customers,” said RTA executive director Scott Truex. “We know that it won’t meet everyone’s needs but based on past data, this schedule should accommodate the greatest number of passengers.” Last winter, the RTA ran six trips a day between Gunnison and Mt. Crested Butte, charging $2 per passenger. Adding two trips this coming winter will allow the RTA to offer a 3:15 p.m. bus from Mountaineer Square in Mt. Crested Butte to Gunnison. “The last time we ran the bus [for] free, the 4:15 bus averaged more people than there are seats. We wanted to give people the option to go down a little earlier,” Truex said. The RTA can offer the additional trips and extend the free service already offered during the spring, summer and fall into winter because it has restored its fund balance. CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

With her camera in hand, Annette Butler climbed into a corral beside an old homestead near Crested Butte South and moved slowly toward a herd of 40 horses milling around in the dirt. “That’s her,” she said, pointing to a dapple-gray mare moving slowly around the edge of the group. “She’s definitely pregnant.” Her husband, Paul, looked back at the stock trailer hitched to their pickup in the driveway and shook his head. “Maybe we’ll only be able to take three,” he said. When the couple drove to the Gunnison Valley from their five-acre spread outside Elizabeth, in the foothills east of the Front Range, the plan had been to get four horses. But they hadn’t made the five-hour trip for a typical stock sale. This was a rescue. “Are you going to get one?” Annette asked me. “If you don’t they’ll go to the meat market.” Queenie, as the pregnant mare came to be called throughout Sunday morning, September 18, was one of a herd of 60 horses that “mysteriously” appeared in the pastures north of Round Mountain in June, according to Liz Currier, who immediately took an interest in the

new arrivals. When they came to the valley, each of the horses was gaunt and mangylooking, still shedding their winter coats. “So rumors started swirling: What are these horses doing here? Who owns these horses? What in God’s name is going on?” Currier recalls. But the answers to those questions did nothing to ease her concern; instead they ignited a passion. The truth was hard to hear. According to Currier, “these horses, as of September 15, would be put in a trailer and driven to Mexico for slaughter,” since the practice has been effectively banned in the United States since 2007. In a 2010 report for Congress, Tadlock Cowan, an analyst in natural resources and rural development, reported that in 2006, 105,000 horses were slaughtered at three remaining abattoirs in the U.S., mainly for export to Europe and Japan, where the meat is valued for being low in cholesterol and high in protein. The following year, court action closed the two plants in Texas and a state ban shuttered the last horse abattoir in Illinois. Since then, horses bound for slaughter have been going to Mexico or Canada. CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

Gunnison County walked away from a legal exchange with SG Interests I Ltd. with an affirmation from the court that its current regulation of oil and gas operations is valid, but found it couldn’t charge gas developers for the inspection or monitoring of their operations. The new ruling could also open a legal door to county inspections of the natural gas infrastructure, if the state allows. Barbara Green, special counsel to the county, told the Board of County Commissioners on Tuesday, September 20, “The order clarified a very important thing for the county. That is, the temporary oil and gas regulations, which are the regulations that we have been applying to different oil and gas operators are, on their face, valid.” In the lawsuit it filed in June, SG argued that the county’s regulations had no effect because they were titled as “temporary regulations for oil and gas operations,” and hadn’t been made permanent with an official action. The county countered that the regulations were constantly being revised, making each version only “temporary.” SG’s lawsuit also claimed the county’s regulations were preempted by state and federal laws. The county defended itself— successfully, for the most part—against similar claims related to preemption in a 2003 lawsuit from BDS International. The order, filed Friday, September 16 by District Judge Steven Patrick, said, “The Court is persuaded that BDS is still viable and has not been limited or reversed …” in a way that would preempt the county regulations. Judge Patrick went on to say the amended Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission rules, which SG argued were the county’s opportunity to participate in industry regulation, “do not demonstrate that the state wholly occupies the field of oil and gas operations.” Instead, Patrick pointed to a “legislative declaration that the Oil and Gas Conservation Act shall not affect existing land use authority of local governments,” as proof of the “General Assembly’s intent to allow local governments to issue land use permits that included conditions affecting oil and gas operations,” not to preempt “all regulation of oil and gas.”

“

CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

[ Overheard ]

Titan Kickers

“If you’re going to hoot with the night owls, you better be able to fly with the early birds.”

An Unsung Hero

Crested Butte News

September 23, 2011 | 9

NEWS

County regs ‘valid’ continued from page 1

On the other hand, while the court agreed that the County could include conditions of approval with a permit application, Patrick disagreed with the County’s assertion that the state granted counties sufficient land use authority to charge a fee from gas developers to pay for an independent inspector to monitor flowback pits being planned for in the Bull Mountain Unit in northwest Gunnison County, or their components. The court said such inspections would involve the county too heavily in the technical aspects of the operation; “conflict with the role, responsibility and determination of COGCC; and such [inspection] duties have not been delegated by COGCC to Gunnison County.” That is, the state has not yet delegated inspection duties to the county. In discussions between the COGCC and Gunnison County, both sides have been trying to work through boundary issues related to the regulation of oil and gas operations.

“

The temporary oil and gas regulations, which are the regulations that we have been applying to different oil and gas operators are, on their face, valid. Barbra Green

Special Council to the BOCC “So what do we do now?” County Attorney David Baumgarten asked the commissioners. “A fair reading says the county can’t charge money for inspections but it doesn’t talk about whether you could conduct the inspections.” A draft Memorandum of Understanding, being proposed by the county and considered by the state, would consider moving inspection authority from the state to the County, which would allow local regulators to keep some tabs on the natural gas infra-

RTA winter bus to be free

continued from page 1

The RTA is funded by a Gunnison Valley sales tax, which began a steady decline when the economy took a downturn in 2008. And according to Truex, in 2009 the RTA funds took another big hit to fund the 2008-2009 air program and a large bus service. Since then, the goal has been to build the fund back up to $350,000. The RTA is set to reach that goal at the end of 2012, achieving a $350,597 balance in unrestricted funds. Sales tax revenues are also up. July brought in $136,630, 15.4 percent higher than last year and an amount back on par with 2007 when the RTA brought in $138,044 in sales tax revenue. “We now feel like we have the breathing room to grow both [the bus and the air] programs again,” Truex said. At the program’s peak, the RTA offered 10 trips a day during the winter, with an additional Saturday trip, and nine trips a day during the summer. But don’t expect to see 10 trips a day just yet—the RTA plans to grow steadily and responsibly instead of going back and forth between more and less trips. Winter bus service will begin November 23, 2011 and will run through April 8, 2012. Until then, the RTA will continue to run three free trips a day. Checkout www.gunnisonvalleyrta. org for detailed schedules. Air schedules for the winter season are also finalized, offering direct flights to the Gunnison-Crested Butte airport from Denver, Houston and Dallas. Airlines have been selling seats since mid-summer. Yet both RTA airline consultant Kent Meyers and Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR) have noted that pacing of those sales is off compared to last year. Exact numbers were not available, but sales typically increase as the season progresses. “If you look at the last two weeks there appears to be, across the [airlines], a dent in the pacing compared to previous years,” Meyers said. “Is it unusual? No, it’s not necessarily unusual because you never know year to year what they’re going to do.” CBMR public relations and communications manager Erica Reiter agrees that it’s something to keep an eye on but is not yet cause for concern. Several factors may be involved: the resort changed its deadline for early season bookings from September 13 last year to November 1 this year; airfare prices are high across the board; and industry consolidation is reducing the supply of planes and lowering competition that can help keep fares low. “Right now we are also dealing with higher fares across the industry, mostly due to fuel costs. American is currently holding a wholesale airfare sale to try to help, but even these sale prices are not cheap,” Reiter said in an email. According to Reiter, CBMR extended the deadline for its early season packages to be more consistent with the ski industry and better match the ski season in Crested Butte. For now CBMR is continuing to market its early season packages, and both the resort and the RTA will keep an eye on pacing as Crested Butte nears the ski season.

SHOWING THE LINE: Josh Bollish takes a few crews to scout Tod’s Slot on the Taylor River before running the class IV move. photo by Kurt Reise structure in the North Fork Valley. In denying the County’s opportunity to collect the fee from gas operators, Judge Patrick went on to say that although SG “successfully exercised the administrative process with respect to the operational conflict in at least one instance,” they didn’t go far enough in the administrative process. He pointed to part of the county regulations that could have allowed SG a waiver from the fees. Had SG taken the county’s process further, Patrick sug-

gested, it might not have mattered. He wrote that the correspondence between attorneys for SG and the County “has unequivocally demonstrated [the county] would deny such a waiver such that exhaustion of any administrative remedy under these facts would be futile as the parties have a dispute as to a question of law.” Judge Patrick’s ruling that the county cannot charge gas companies for inspections put the county in a predicament, since it had already collected about $20,000 from Gunnison

Energy Corporation. After discussing the matter in executive session, the commissioners, noting the good working relationship they’ve had with the company, voted to return the inspection fees. The commissioners directed staff to request that the court allow the county to take another look at the regulation requiring the inspection fee, so it could come into line with the court order. The court will conduct a status conference Friday, September 23, which will allow the county and SG to discuss the lawsuit.

Season Passes On Sale! We accept Butte Bucks, a 20% savings when used to purchase passes. PASSES AND PRICES Type Before Before 10/01/11 10/31/11 Adult + touring Pass $250 $265 Adult $165 $180 senior (+60) (+70 is Free) $130 $145 student (13-20) $125 $140 Child (6-12) (<5 is Free) $55 $60 Couple (same home) $305 $335 Family (4 passes, same home) $390 $420 touring Pass $100 $100 Pooches Paradise dog Pass Free with season Pass $0 $0 town ranch oNLY dog Pass $35 $35

After 11/01/11 $280 $195 $160 $155 $65 $365 $450 $100 $0 $35

We Prefer You Buy On-Line! www.cbnordic.org The Crested Butte Nordic Council proudly supports and participates in the 1% for Open Space program. Without open space and easements, our Nordic trail system could not exist! THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING THE CRESTED BUTTE NORDIC COUNCIL!

Crested Butte NordiC CeNter • 970-349-1707 • info@cbnordic.org