EnCana USA has won Garfield County approval to operate up to 31 temporary facilities housing nearly 750 natural gas development workers north of Parachute.
Each of the facilities, known informally as man camps, is allowed to hold up to 24 employees and contractors. None would be operated more than one year under the county permits.
Energy companies have used temporary housing facilities under the permission of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, but the county learned it had authority to regulate them and instituted its permitting process last November.
Parachute Mayor Roy McClung wrote to the county that while the onsite housing will help, the town still will see traffic impacts related to EnCana’s drilling plans and is worried about overloaded intersections and the lack of funding to improve them.
He suggested in the letter that the county needs to be collecting impact fees from such developments to meet highway improvement needs.
Read Dennis Webb’s full article . . .
Categories: Energy · Housing · Planning
The Colorado Senate endorsed Gov. Bill Ritter’s plan to overhaul the state’s oil and gas regulatory process.
The Senate approved House Bill 1341, which will expand and change the makeup of the Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to include environmental, wildlife, public health and landowner representatives.
The bill will reduce from five to three the number of industry voices while expanding the commission to nine members.
The seven-member panel is dominated by oil and gas
representatives, which critics say amounts to the industry regulating
itself.
Read the full article . . .
Categories: Energy · Policy · Uncategorized
Saanich, BC wants residential builders to build “green” by cutting “red” tape. It is giving priority to applications for housing projects using energy-efficient components and provide those builders rebates of up to 30 per cent on building-permit fees.
Read the full article . . .
Categories: Energy · Environment · Housing · Innovation · Uncategorized
The oil trapped in the oil shale of Western Colorado maybe vast, but it is unclear whether it makes economic sense to get it. Canadian Peter Tertzakian thinks supplying the world’s 1,000 barrel a second oil addiction will be far from easy. But that doesn’t mean businesses aren’t hedging their bets.
Earlier this week, the Bush administration authorized oil-shale leases for five sites on public land in western Colorado. As Mike Soraghan writes, they are the first leases since the shale bust of the 1980s wrenched the region’s economy.
The approval was for relatively small-scale “research and development” leases, but it was the government’s biggest endorsement yet of oil shale, a vast petroleum resource with a checkered past.
The 10-year research and development leases clear the way for Shell, Chevron Corp. and EGL Resources to use 160-acre sites of public land between Rangely and Meeker in Rio Blanco County.
The leases can be converted later into larger, commercial leases.
Shell has been operating on private land in the area, but shale deposits owned by the federal government are thicker and richer with organic material.
All three of the companies are experimenting with heating the shale underground to melt organic material into oil, then pumping it out of the ground.
Read the full article by Mike Soraghan . . .
Categories: Energy · Uncategorized
September 10, 2006 · 1 Comment
If the economy of the the Western Slope weren’t already hot enough, the promise (or spector depending on your perspective) looms over discussions about what the future might hold for the area.
Since the Colorado State Demographer already forecasts significant population and job growth for Eagle, Pitkin, and Garfield Counties over the next 20-30 years (and that’s “without considering oil shale” goes the common rejoinder), what happens with oil shale research and development hoovers over the region’s collective imagination.
The region’s oil shale deposits hold enough potential “oil” (three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia) to attract a lot of national attention. Unfortunately, as an article in the San Francisco Chronicle reports, “the energy value of the oil produced would be about 3.5 times greater than the energy in the electricity used to produce it.”
Even if the technology evolves enough to extract oil from oil shale, we’ve centainly entered a would of diminishing energy returns.
Categories: Energy · Environment
The Rocky Mountain News did a series on the energy boom rocking parts of Colorado and how communities are enjoying, coping, and mitigating the impacts (or at least trying to). The series offers a a number of perspectives and the challenges involved in local-state-federal policy making and planning.
Jason Blevins story captures the essence of life in Garfield County since the boom began five years ago. As New Castle Mayor Frank Breslin says, “It’s just all happening so fast out here. I just dart around like a bumblebee.”
Transit oriented development is gaining traction around the U.S. (it’s already popular in many other countries) because it can address many community issues — provide affordable housing, increase transit service, prevent loss of open space, create public places — at the same time.
Trees in an arid environment such as Denver cannot be taken for granted. But it is not only rain fall that determines the type and number of trees – commuity income plays a factor as well.