Tag: David Neslin
Major gas-producing states debating Colorado-style drilling regulations
From Texas to Wyoming to Pennsylvania, a gusher of environmental rules is facing the natural gas industry in the coming months and years, putting Colorado ahead of the regulatory curve when it implemented strict new drilling regs in the spring of 2009, according to the state’s top oil and gas official.
Politics remain charged around year-old state drilling regulations
Predictions of economic doom that surrounded the environmentally tougher oil and gas drilling regulations put in place in Colorado more than a year ago would seem to have lost power. The political rhetoric has cooled somewhat, other states are now weighing implementing their own Colorado-style regs, and drilling activity is slowly picking up again on the Western Slope.
State backlogged with gas contamination cases dating back years
Despite a record fine of $390,000 levied last month against Oxy USA, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has a backlog of unresolved water and soil contamination cases resulting from natural gas drilling in northwest Colorado, a Colorado Independent investigation reveals.
Independent’s Williams appears tonight on PBS’s ‘Colorado State of Mind’
Colorado Independent reporter David O. Williams, who covers energy and environmental issues on the state’s Western Slope, appears tonight at 7:30 on the Rocky...
ProPublica report: state oil and gas enforcement staffing levels inadequate
Colorado oil and gas regulators have admitted to the Colorado Independent they’re spread too thin to handle a new set of EPA rules if...
State regulators dismiss frack-fluid ID-tagging proposal
Environmental activists are calling on Colorado officials to require oil and gas companies to chemically tag the fluids used in hydraulic fracturing, an increasingly controversial natural gas drilling process. Many suspect that "fracking" may be contaminating ground water and chemical tags would make it possible for regulators to identify the source of any contamination. The idea is a hot topic among those favoring increased federal oversight of the process, but industry officials won’t even discuss the idea, and state regulators say it’s barely on their radar screens.
‘Life in the Red Zone’ gas drilling film depicts flaming Fort...
The new documentary “Split Estate” is getting all the publicity on Colorado’s Western Slope lately, but a filmmaker from Milanville, Pa., shot a raw,...
GarCo commissioners delay FRAC Act decision after viewing anti-drilling film
GLENWOOD SPRINGS — Everyone was a film critic Monday at a somewhat tense screening of the new anti-gas-drilling documentary “Split Estate” for the Garfield County commissioners. Most of the reviews — surprisingly, even from the industry — were glowing.
Penry politicizes drilling regs, calls for permit extension … or else
Republican state Sen. Josh Penry appears determined to make the loss of energy-sector jobs a key campaign issue in his run for the governor’s...
Oil-and-gas director says state AG may have to decide drilling setback...
A potentially precedent-setting fight over how close natural gas drilling should come to homes in the Western Slope community of Battlement Mesa may ultimately be decided by Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, according to the director of the state’s oil and gas conservation commission.