Rocky Mountain News:
Oil and gas drilling restricted in Durango
By Heather Draper, Rocky Mountain News
June 21, 2002
The Bureau of Land Management this week restricted all oil and gas drilling, testing or pipeline construction in and around Durango to guard against fire risk in the area.
Residents in areas that are being drilled for coalbed methane and natural gas - such as the San Juan Basin south of Durango and the Piceance Basin near Glenwood Springs - have grown concerned about the fire dangers created from gas-well drilling activities.
"Their operations can continue, but we've created requirements that they take extra fire prevention measures," said Jim Powers, BLM San Juan Public Lands Center assistant manager for physical resources.
One of the biggest restrictions is the requirement that gas companies notify the BLM of any planned "flaring" activities, which entail burning off excess natural gas on a well site.
"We'll examine each request on a case-by-case basis and either approve or disapprove it," Powers said.
The San Juan Citizens Alliance is drafting a letter to the BLM asking that the bureau stop all mineral drilling or well stimulation activities that could ignite fires, said Alan Rolston, organizer for the group.
"We're worried about it," Rolston said. "If they continue their normal practices, it increases the risk of fire."
The Missionary Ridge fire near Durango - thought to be started by a human on June 9 - has burned nearly 54,000 acres and has forced 2,466 people to evacuate.
Rolston cited a fire last June about seven miles south of Durango that started from gas drilling activities. Red Willow Producing, a company of the Southern Ute tribes, caused the fire when fracturing a coal seam to increase the flow of natural gas.
"More gas comes to the surface when stimulating the well, and some of those gases escaped and started a fire," Rolston said.
Rich Griebling, director of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, said he had never heard of a fire in Colorado being caused by an oil or gas well, at least in the lands the commission has jurisdiction over.
"And I've never heard of a gas well being impacted by a fire," he said.
Oil and gas operators in Colorado are "very aware" of the fire dangers in the state and are taking every precaution to prevent them, Griebling said.
BP Amoco shut down some of its wells near Durango on Thursday because of the fire, Griebling said.
Denver-based Evergreen Resources shut down 65 of its methane gas wells, which represents about 5 percent of its production capacity. Tulsa, Okla.-based Williams Co. stopped 178 of its gas wells because of the Spring fire in that area earlier this month. Those wells began producing again two days later.
The BLM's Powers said the gas well operators near Durango "had taken it upon themselves to do these things even without the restrictions. The companies were way out ahead in terms of emergency preparedness."
draperh@RockyMountainNews.com or (303)892-5456
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