1. ENERGY DEVELOPMENT: Operators try to prove wildlife, drilling can coexist in western Colo. (Land Letter, 09/18/2008)

Eryn Gable, special to Land Letter

GARFIELD COUNTY, Colo. -- When Byron Gale looks at the deep valleys, striking waterfalls and steep canyon walls of the North Parachute Ranch, he sees a place that could easily be a national park.

But this is no national park, and Gale is no park ranger. And the waterfall tumbling down the 2,000-foot-high canyon is a 90-foot-high drilling rig tucked into the valley.

While it is a scene some people might find disconcerting, Gale says the awesome beauty of the ranch is what inspires the company to do its work with as little environmental impact as possible.

"It's very scenic country on the ranch, and to us, it really calls it to our attention even more day-to-day to really do things right and reduce our risk because this is the land that we're working in," Gale said. "It's very scenic and we intend to keep it that way."

North Parachute Ranch might look like a national park, but it's a hotbed for energy development. Photo by Eryn Gable.

The 28,000-acre North Parachute Ranch is the property of EnCana Corp., one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, and Gale is the company's team leader for the north Piceance Basin, a hotbed of energy development on Colorado's Western Slope.

In Garfield County alone, where the North Parachute Ranch is located, there are just fewer than 5,000 active wells and more than 1,900 approved for drilling, according to the latest figures from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

The swell of oil and gas development has rejuvenated the region's economy, bringing $3.4 billion to the Piceance Basin in 2005, but it has also raised questions about the long-term impacts of energy development, not just for the people who call the area home but for its wildlife, as well.

Protecting wildlife from energy development has been a hot topic in Colorado as of late, with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission considering rules that would require drillers to take steps to protect key species -- such as mule deer, elk and sage grouse -- or stop operations for 90 days during sensitive wintering and mating seasons. After fierce opposition from industry, the COGCC last week postponed its decision on the wildlife timing limitations until its regularly scheduled commission hearings Sept. 22-23.

An attempt to 'do it right'

One of the state's biggest natural gas producers, EnCana is the largest leaseholder in the Piceance Basin, with about 1 million acres under its control.

EnCana acquired the North Parachute Ranch in 2004, when there was little development on the ranch in terms of gas wells. One of the first things that was done was a set of surveys of air conditions, water conditions, wildlife and vegetation, Gale said.

"That way, you have your baseline covered, and then, as your program evolves, you can continue those studies and always compare it back to your baseline conditions to know what you're having, and if you're having negative impact, then you can either change the program or do more to mitigate the impact that you're having relative to the habitat or the environment," Gale said.

To ameliorate some of the impacts to wildlife, EnCana and some other operators in the Piceance Basin have made a concerted effort to "do it right" by using technologies such as directional development and adapting their work to minimize impacts to wildlife.

This shot shows wells clustered together and concentrated on one pad. Photo by Eryn Gable.

"I can't think of any area or any field or any unit or any lease within the state of Colorado that has this setup that we have on North Parachute Ranch," Gale said. "I don't know of any area that has a more complete database relative to the wildlife and the environment, whether it's the baseline studies or ongoing studies, or just having that [environmental] perspective built into our day-to-day planning as we move these projects forward."

Just north of the town of Parachute, EnCana has five of its operating drill rigs grinding away, sending out well shafts in all directions. The company has plans to drill between 120 and 140 wells in 2008 off 14 pads. From a single pad, the company can sink up to 48 wells, sending the drills out as far out as a mile and as far down as 10,000 feet. Each pad the company drills on in 2008 will have an average of 20 wells, Gale said.

The company has also laid several miles of pipeline to move water to and from the drill rigs and transport the gas products, eliminating truck trips with their associated traffic, noise, dust and emissions. There is a cost benefit, too. It saves the company about $4 a barrel, according to Doug Rosa, field operations leader of EnCana's northern Piceance operations.

EnCana installed 11 water monitoring wells and tested water at 21 different surface locations. All of the company's water sampling has indicated that there has not been any effect from drilling on the riparian areas.

There are also two permanent air-quality monitoring stations with real-time data.

Wildlife protection measures

The company has also mapped the locations of three active sage grouse mating leks (a lek is a mating area for the sage grouse), bald eagle nests, and elk and mule deer migration corridors, allowing it to avoid these areas during critical times for the species. For example, the company will close off a road near a lek during the early hours of the morning when the birds are most active.

"It's an incredible data set. I don't know of any data set that compares to this at this time," said company biologist Nicole Byrne.

"But it's more than just a showpiece for us. It's part of our planning process. So anytime that a project comes up, whether it's a well pad or whether it's going to be a permanent long-term facility, part of the planning process is taking out this map and looking to see what will be impacted, what are going to be the likely consequences of putting something in one position versus another."

Several experts said the conclusions that can be drawn from EnCana's studies are somewhat limited because they started after some development had occurred and there are no control areas where development is not occurring. "Without baseline data and control areas that aren't being affected by oil and gas, they won't be able to draw strong conclusions," said Erin Robertson, senior staff biologist for the Center for Native Ecosystems.

However, it is not easy to find such a control area, especially since the only large chunks of land under the control of a single company tend to be private lands, where companies are -- not surprisingly -- setting some areas aside for drilling, said Division of Wildlife spokesman Randy Hampton. "Given the state and the speed and the pace of development, it's very difficult to find a place where development is not occurring," he said.

Gary Graham, vice president and executive director of Audubon Colorado, said such studies can still be useful. For example, he noted that most of the information on the effects of energy development on sage grouse comes from studies in Wyoming that have compared areas of intense development to those without as much development.

"It's because of those kinds of studies that we're able to say with a large degree of certainty that if you're within six-tenths of a mile of a grouse lek, you will usually cause the lek to be abandoned," Graham said. (EnCana maintains a quarter-mile protective buffer around active lek sites during the breeding season.)

EnCana has also donated $1 million to the state Division of Wildlife for five-year studies of sage grouse, mule deer and reclamation.

"The results of those projects will help us with our reclamation efforts, help us with co-existing with sage grouse and mule deer," Gale said.

John Broderick, DOW's senior terrestrial biologist for northwest Colorado, said these studies are important because they will give scientists a better idea of whether the measures companies are taking to mitigate impacts to wildlife are actually working. The studies, which are expected to last 10 years, will compare how wildlife responds in areas with mitigations to how it fares in areas without them, as well as different reclamation and restoration efforts.

"The development is here to stay, and it's going to be intensive, but these studies will help us limit the negative impact, so we can say [to the gas companies], 'Here's the best thing to do,' and assure our constituency, the people of Colorado, that the deer and elk and sage grouse will be here in the future in the face of oil and gas," Broderick said.

Even things like directional drilling, which are generally thought to reduce impacts to wildlife, may not have a clear-cut benefit. For example, Robertson said, two companies can still have well pads right next to each other, and the multi-well pads are substantially larger than conventional pads.

"It is better than than having five wells sprinkled across the landscape, and it makes sense to cluster the development, but unless [planning is] done on a landscape level, the wildlife will still suffer from habitat fragmentation," she said.

And while directional drilling is often touted by industry as a boon to wildlife, it is clear that there is an economic incentive, as well. Directional drilling means fewer facilities, fewer pipelines and fewer pads, which translates to fewer truck trips made with expensive diesel fuel and fewer roads, pads and facilities to maintain.

EnCana is scheduled to begin reclaiming this area soon. Photo by Eryn Gable.

"The reality for the companies is that it's got to be economical for them," Hampton said.

EnCana is just getting ready to reclaim the first of its well pads. The 12 wells on the 3.5-acre well pad are still operational, however, so less than an acre of the well pad will be planted to leave enough room for a service rig to get on the pad. The wells are expected to continue producing for 20 to 30 years.

EnCana plans to plant some non-native species on the site that it hopes will improve the forage for wildlife. The seed is expected to start growing next year.

Broderick questioned whether such a plan would be effective. Although non-native species are sometimes planted to stabilize the soils, he said that fiber mats and mulch can be used to keep soil in place and maintain soil moisture while native plants establish themselves.

"The [wildlife] populations are best served by working with native habitats," he said. "These animals have evolved in their natural habitat with all sorts of ecological functions and processes that we may not fully understand."

Williams steps up to the plate

Other companies in the Piceance Basin have also taken steps that they say will help the area's wildlife. Williams Cos. Inc., which has more than 2,200 active wells in Colorado and plans to drill another 1,000 wells by the end of 2009, mostly in the valley floor between the towns of Rifle and Parachute, has centralized its hydraulic fracturing facilities and agreed not to drill on its private leaseholding on the valley floor in exchange for the Bureau of Land Management's lifting a winter drilling restriction in an area northeast of Parachute known as Hayes Gulch.

The idea is that Williams would be able to drill the area using high-efficiency rigs, which can drill, complete and put wells into production at the same time, leaving a smaller footprint than conventional rigs and shortening the drilling time by several years.

"What we did is we got together with the BLM and the Division of Wildlife and said, 'We've got these new technologies that we'd really like to employ on BLM land what we're currently using on private land. The only problem is, with the winter timing limitations, it makes it economically unfeasible to use some of these technologies,'" said Kent Rider, an environmental specialist with Williams.

The high-efficiency rigs become feasible when the companies know that the rigs can stay in one place for an extended period of time, allowing them to drill several wells, Rider said. Putting as many wells on one pad as you can, he said, is beneficial to wildlife because you reduce the number of access routes and pads that would otherwise fragment the habitat.

"We were in there drilling for basically two winters, and then for the next 25 to 30 years while those wells are producing, it's going to be better wildlife habitat because of the way we went about it," Rider said.

The pads use an above-ground system of pipes that transports fracturing fluids and water, eliminating the need for trucks, and water and condensate produced from the wells is gathered in a closed system, eliminating the need for tanks and open pits.

The valley floor where Williams has agreed not to drill in the winter also provides better habitat for deer than Hayes Gulch, with its sparse stands of piñon and juniper trees.

"We were giving them a place to go, while we were in this drainage, and then once we were done, we have locked gates up here, traffic is restricted, so we wanted to really minimize traffic once we were done up here, so that would encourage the deer, in particular, to come back into this area," Williams spokeswoman Donna Gray said.

The company has also done work to improve habitat in the Hayes Gulch, funding the release of tamarisk beetles in the drainage in the hope that they would attack the invasive plants and give young cottonwoods a chance to grow.

Most of Williams' drilling is focused on existing well pads that only have four to eight wells currently and, using one of its 26 active rigs, drilling up to 22 wells on those pads, Gray said. That means Williams can drill 500 wells this year and create less than 100 acres of new disturbance, and the pads can be spread farther apart -- usually at about a 160-acre spacing.

Robertson noted that other deals Williams has made with the purported goal of helping wildlife have been questionable, at best. For example, she said, the company planted alfalfa along Interstate 70 with the supposed goal of providing forage for deer, a move that allowed them to drill in an area with piñon-juniper habitat and to use water from the Colorado River that the company was at risk of losing its rights to in order to water the alfalfa.

"The idea of attracting deer along I-70 seems like a bad idea," Robertson said. "Even if they don't get killed by traffic, it will make it easier for hunters to shoot them and create more risk for the animals."

Awaiting COGCC's determination

It is unclear whether projects like the ones in Hayes Gulch would be able to continue under the wildlife timing limitations being considered by the COGCC. "At this point, I think that industry and COGCC are interpreting what we're seeing in the draft rules fairly differently," Gray said. "I think our concern is, what's the actual application going to look like?"

Gray also noted that the timing limitation would apply to all private land. "That would be a big deal for us," she said.

The bottom line is, it's too early to say yet whether the steps energy companies are taking in Garfield County are ameliorating some of the impact from oil and gas development. In the meantime, energy companies and federal and state agencies are struggling to find a way to allow development to occur in an orderly fashion while also protecting wildlife.

"We understand the need for the resource, but we also know it needs to be done in a fashion that does not negatively impact Colorado's wildlife resource, a resource that belongs to the people of Colorado," Hampton said.

Gable is an independent energy and environmental writer in Woodland Park, Colo.

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