PLEASANT VIEW — In the tidy green swaths of alfalfa, beans and wheat carpeting western Montezuma County, it is easy to overlook a sagebrush-studded field along the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument.
But that 473-acre dry patch of land is targeted to become an industrial zone where the liquid dregs of oil and gas drilling will be collected and cleaned up.
That prospect in one of the state’s prime agriculture areas — and one of the nation’s richest in ancient artifacts — has triggered a fractious clash. Arguments about agriculture, energy development, tourism, the environment and ancient artifacts are all coming to a head over this remote ground.
A local company co-owned by Montezuma County Planning Commissioner Casey McClellan and his brother, Kelly McClellan, wants to build a series of evaporative ponds the size of six football fields. The site also would have fields where sludge and contaminated soils could be spread for cleanup.
Their proposal, already recommended for approval by the Planning Commission, will go before the County Commission on June 1.
Supporters of the facility see it as a good way to make the county more inviting to the energy industry, along with its jobs and “mailbox money,” the term that local farmers use for royalty checks.
A toxic byproduct
They also see it as a solution to a dirty problem associated with oil and gas wells — the disposal of the production water that comes from fluids injected underground to break up shale rock. The water is more salty than ocean water and laced with both naturally occurring and added chemicals, including carcinogens, heavy metals and radioactive materials.
The owners of the facility stress that they will follow new, stricter state regulations passed in the wake of six of nine of the current Colorado impoundments having problems. They say they can treat the water so it will be cleaner than what is flowing in the neighboring Dolores River.
“The fact that we are trying to recycle, we thought would be welcomed,” said Nathan Barton, the engineer on a project initially called the Outhouse Recycling Facility but later changed to Cajon Mesa Facility when the first name did not amuse opponents.
Those opponents object to the project on many levels.
“It’s an absolutely horrible location,” said Erin Johnson, a Rico attorney who represents the opponents and will formally present their objections to the county commissioners at the June 1 hearing.
The opponents cite the possibility of wind-blown salts and contaminants on farm fields and in homes. The nearest home is just over a mile away — twice the distance mandated by the new state regulations, but too close for comfort for some residents familiar with southwest winds that regularly top 40 mph.
They also don’t like the possibility of negative impacts on tourism. Part of Hovenweep and the Painted Hand Pueblo, an ancient rock lookout tower in the Canyons of the Ancients, are about a mile away.
Opponents have banded together under the name Hovenweep Alliance and the driving force of 10-year resident Gary Wright.
Wright, a former corporate architect, lives in an old metal grain shed that he turned into a stylish home at the edge of Canyons of the Ancients and a mile and a half from the controversial acreage.
He is the kind of resident that letter-writers to the local papers call a “Johnny Come Lately.” Dove Creek-area farmer Dan Johnson recently wrote that these newcomers should “GO BACK HOME!!”
But the dispute doesn’t break down neatly into oldtimers versus newcomers or farmers versus drillers. This area of the Great Sage Plain is changing too much for that.
Subdivisions have been popping up in former bean fields, and retirees are discovering the area offers a better bargain on homes than mountain communities.
Agriculture is still a major driver of the economy, but energy development now provides 40 percent of Montezuma County’s property tax revenues.
The activism of the Hovenweep Alliance has surprised some residents, such as the McClellans, who have lived in the area for generations.
Last week, opponents held the first sign-waving protest march that county officials could recall. They have gathered 749 adult signatures on petitions and another 179 from schoolkids. They have jammed hearings on the issue to the point that the next one will be in a larger facility.
Archaeological angst
Officials with Canyons of the Ancients and nearby Hovenweep National Monument also have submitted objections to a location so close to the greatest concentration of archaeological sites in the country. Crow Canyon Archaeological Center president Ricky Lightfoot called the technology planned for the recycling center “crude and dangerously out of date.”
There is little argument that drilling waste needs to go somewhere. Drillers must drive up to 100 miles to Utah or New Mexico, which might quit taking Colorado’s waste, to dump production water. The closest Colorado impoundment is near Montrose.
Bottom line: A site closer to home would save oil and gas companies money and hassle.
Bob Peterson, an environmental-protection specialist with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said the Cortez- area facility would be the first located next to a national monument and also adjacent to irrigated farm land. Most are in remote areas near grazing lands.
Peterson and his department will review the application if the county commissioners pass it. If the state finds it meets all requirements, it will then go back to the county for final approval — a process that will likely take at least half a year.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
