Winter has loosed its grip on Colorado’s Western Slope, and the elk and mule deer are climbing out of their canyon winter grounds and heading to the high country.
On their trek, the herds will cross pipelines, drilling rigs, waste ponds and freshly cut roads — all part of the state’s booming, $23 billion-a-year oil- and-gas industry.
In an effort to balance the wells and wildlife, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is considering regulations to protect wildlife in the oil and gas fields.
The proposed rules, however, are already drawing fire from the energy industry, which says they are too strict, and conservation groups, which charge they are too weak.
The Colorado Wildlife Commission — which can offer comment only on the drilling regulations — on Thursday adopted a statement saying that some of the rules are “not adequate to protect wildlife.”
“We think they are going to have to do a little more,” said Tom Burke, the commission’s chairman.
The basic concern is that energy development will damage habitat and impair breeding and survival rates for species, such as the Gunnison Sage-grouse, which is a candidate for the federal endangered-species list.
A study of mule deer in the oil fields of Sublette County, Wyo. — funded by industry and government agencies — found a 46 percent decline in the herd to 2,818 in four years.
“We aren’t trying to force out the industry,” said Bob Elderkin, a member of the board of the Colorado Mule Deer Association. “But this is one of the most intensively drilled patches in the U.S. — we need some regulation.”
In 2007, 50 percent of the 6,368 oil and gas drilling permits issued in the state were in the six Colorado counties — Moffat, Routt, Jackson, Rio Blanco, Garfield and Mesa — that hold critical habitat for elk, mule deer and Sage-grouse.
Since 2001, drilling in the area has increased eightfold.
“It just happens that the epicenter of energy development is the epicenter for the largest deer, elk and Sage-grouse populations in the state,” said Ron Vilarde, a regional manager for the state Division of Wildlife.
The proposed rules — the result of a legislative mandate to balance energy development and wildlife protection — would require companies to survey for wildlife and limit surface disturbance. Violations would carry a $10,000 fine.
90-day drilling ban
The proposal that has drawn the most fire is a 90-day drilling ban during key wintering or breeding periods for about 12 species, including mule deer, elk, pronghorn antelope and Sage-grouse.
“We’d potentially have to shut every rig we have working,” said Doug Hock, a spokesman for EnCana Corp., one of the state’s largest operators.
About 1 million acres of EnCana land would fall under the closure rule, Hock said.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, says the timing rule would cut drilling in northwestern Colorado by 20 percent.
After the industry protested that some land could be closed for up to six months between wintering and breeding protections, the oil-and-gas commission staff agreed to limit closures to a single 90-day period each year.
That means wildlife officials will have to choose which animal benefits from the three-month drilling halt.
If it were a choice between mule- deer winter range and the Sage- grouse spring breeding, the bird would likely get the protection, said Tom Remington, director of the state Division of Wildlife.
It was this limitation that prompted the wildlife commission to say that a single 90-day period “does not reflect an appropriate balance of oil and gas development and wildlife interests.”
When energy companies work on federal land, they already face drilling limits to protect wildlife.
For example, in the Bureau of Land Management’s May lease sale, more than half the 7,500 acres being offered in Jackson County had closures for winter habitat and elk calving.
Federal lands, however, account for less than 15 percent of the well permits in Colorado. The state rules would apply to all state and private lands.
Energy companies can avoid the 90-day closure by limiting their activity to one or two drilling pads per square mile or negotiating other remedial measures with state wildlife officials.
“Industry has tended to portray this as an all-or-nothing rule,” said Dave Neslin, acting director of the oil-and- gas commission, “but we’ve really tried to provide options and balance.”
In Las Animas County, which is exempt from the closure rules, energy companies are already working to limit drilling activity during periods requested by landowners, such as hunting season, said Jay P. Still, a vice president with Pioneer Natural Resources USA.
“The industry is willing to work with landowners and the commission,” Still said, “but this mandatory closure is a problem.”
Mark Jaffe: 303-954-1912 or mjaffe@denverpost.com
