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| September 02, 2010 |
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Visitors urge southeast Wyoming to prepare for oil boom
CHEYENNE — Plan ahead!
That was the advice from visiting county officials to southeastern Wyoming counties preparing for a coming oil boom as oil producers use new horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing technology to tap the Niobrara formation oil shale deposits in southeast Wyoming.
County officials from Sublette County, home of two of Wyoming’s largest natural gas fields, and Weld County, Colorado, where an oil boom already is under way, participated in a series of seminars organized by the High Plains Economic Development District in Wheatland and sponsored by Laramie, Platte and Goshen counties as well as economic development groups and one of the large energy companies active in the area.
The first seminar was held Tuesday night in Cheyenne and the second today in Torrington. A third seminar is on tap tonight in Wheatland (6 p.m., Wheatland High School Auditorium.)
Sublette County Commissioner Joel Bousman advised an audience of several hundred to “identify who you need to work with early in the game,” including not only industry players but government agencies and community groups.
“Develop early on that good working relationship with all the players at the table,” Bousman said. “Be honest and open in addressing the impacts, you decisions are going to be based on science and the best available information, and go from there. It can be done in a way where it’s win-win situation for everybody.”
Laura Latta, the Sublette community partnership coordinator, said people in Sublette County were “a little naïve” when their boom started, and she emphasized the value of starting now to “facilitate partnerships dealing with socio-economic issues.”
“If we had had the information ... beforehand on socioeconomic issues, we would have been much more prepared and made a much more effective comprehensive plan earlier rather than later,” she said.
Sublette County Planner Brad Meyer emphasized the need for temporary housing for the oil rig workers, particularly in the rural counties. In Sublette County, developers overbuilt single family houses, and now there is a glut on the market. The county “probably could have done a better job” developing man camps for temporary workers early in the Jonah Field and Pinedale Anticline gas boom.
Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway echoed those comments, advising the several hundred people at the seminar to identify areas and issues of conflict as early as possible and then deal with them.
“It is extremely important to develop partnerships early on in the process, to identify areas of need, to identify potential conflict areas,” he emphasized.
Weld County, just south of Laramie County, is the eighth largest agricultural producer in the United States but also the second largest oil and gas producer in Colorado. Its largest oil producer, Noble Energy, also figures to be an important player in southeast Wyoming, with 250,000 acres already leased.
“Oil and gas shales are redefining the future of the oil and gas industry in the U.S.,” said Jeff Schwartz, manager of Noble’s Rocky Mountain Business Unit. “This shale has huge potential for Wyoming.”
But Schwartz also cautioned that the Niobrara shales in Wyoming still need to be proved up over a large area before the predictions of a large play come to be.
“The industry still has to drill more wells before we know the true potential,” he warned.
The panel also included representatives from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and the Wyoming Business Alliance. |
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EPA: Pavillion wells contaminated
PAVILLION — Yesterday, the EPA told property owners here that their fears of well contamination were confirmed by tests. Of the 23 wells tested in January, low levels of hydrocarbons were found in 17 of them.
Residents whose wells "flunked" the tests were advised by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry not to drink the water. Residents also were told to use different sources of water for drinking and cooking.
No health concerns were found related to inhalation exposure to the chemicals while showering or using evaporative coolers, agency officials said.
Encana spokesman Doug Hock noted that the hydrocarbon pollution did not exceed EPA or Wyoming state standards, and contended that the pollution occurred before 2005, when Encana began drilling in the area.
Regardless of where the fault lies, Encana has committed to working with the EPA in helping residents clean up their wells or obtain drinking water from elsewhere.
The EPA has would not identify nor rule out fracking as the source of the pollution.
"EPA will work as long as necessary to ensure that Pavillion residents have safe water," Jim Martin, EPA's regional administrator in Denver, said in a statement released Tuesday. "While our investigation continues, EPA has secured commitments from our partners to identify alternate sources of water for affected homes and to evaluate long-term solutions."
In addition to detecting several petroleum hydrocarbons, including methane and benzene, the EPA found a number of "inorganic constituents," such as sodium and sulfates in drinking and groundwater wells, according to the report.
For more information: http://www.epa.gov/region8/superfund/wy/pavillion/index.html |
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College credit for high school students focus of public meetings
CHEYENNE - The ability for students to earn both high school and college credits at the same time will be the focus of a series of meetings across Wyoming during September.
Hosted by the Wyoming P-16 Education Council and the state's community colleges, the public will be asked to respond to proposed statewide guidelines for dual and concurrent enrollment courses.
Meetings are scheduled at:
- Central Wyoming College, Riverton, on Sept. 9, 7-9 p.m. in the Fremont Community Room in the Student Center;
- Western Wyoming Community College, Rock Springs, on Sept. 14, 5:30-7 p.m. in Room 1302;
- Northern Wyoming Community College District, Sheridan, on Sept. 22, 5:30-7 p.m. at Sheridan College Main Street.
Concurrent enrollment refers to classes offered by a high school in which the student earns both high school and college credits. Dual enrollment also allows for simultaneous credit, but in classes offered by a college.
Research has shown that dual and concurrent enrollment classes benefit high school students by allowing experience in meeting college-level expectations. It also saves time and money in attaining college degrees and career-technical certificates and reduces the need for remedial college classes.
The upcoming meetings stem from a 2009 legislative report that showed differing levels of access for high school students to dual and concurrent enrollment programs throughout the state. In March of this year, the Legislature responded by passing a bill requiring that dual and concurrent program agreements between colleges and school districts comply with minimum statewide standards.
The Wyoming Community College Commission must develop the standards through a broad-based, consensus-building process involving administrators, faculty members and counselors from school districts, colleges and the University of Wyoming, as well as representatives of the Wyoming Department of Education, students and parents.
For more information about the meetings, contact Wyoming P-16 Council Executive Director Kelley Pelissier at p-16wyo@live.com or visit the council website at www.wp-16.org.
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