GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.—A working group studying how energy revenue should be allocated says many factors should be considered.
Instead of giving the money based entirely on industry employee numbers, the state should look at factors like road usage and well counts, said Rebecca Frank, who co-chairs the mineral revenue interim committee’s working group.
It was set up under the Colorado Legislative Council. Presently Colorado law awards the money based on the number of employees who live in a community.
“We know what happens when you permit one drilling rig,” Frank said. “There is a whole cascade effect when one well gets drilled. That is known. From there we can start to quantify what that means,” she told the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.
Doug Kemper, Colorado Water Congress executive director, who also is in the working group, said fairly allocating the money is difficult because it is hard to gauge effects on schools and social services.
“Measuring direct impacts is a difficult thing to do,” said Kemper.
Officials in some towns say the workers pass through their areas, putting an added burden on their roads, but live elsewhere.
On the other hand, Burlington, which has few wells, got more than $17,000 last year.
Mesa County Commissioner Craig Meis, the working group’s second co-chair, said “by defining the boundaries for where and how and who these energy impact dollars should go to” the state can do a better job of mitigating the impact.
The state’s mineral revenue committee has been struggling with how to objectively identify the impacts.
State Local Affairs Director Susan Kirkpatrick said there isn’t any way to do an independent assessment.
“We can have a good task force and a good committee, but we need good information,” Isgar said. “To me, the basis (of the committee) has to be to meet the impacts we identify,” said State Sen. Jim Isgar, D-Hesperus.
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Information from: The Daily Sentinel,
