SPRING VALLEY – — Some area residents have wondered why SourceGas insists that a compressor station be built on remote land in Spring Valley belonging to Colorado Mountain College (CMC).
The reasons are both financial and technical in nature, said SourceGas spokeswoman Natalie Shelbourn.
First, installing a compressor station to boost the pressure in an existing line, Shelbourn said, is far less expensive than building a new pipeline to serve the company’s growing number of customers in this region.
Second, Shelbourn said, the company needs to pack more molecules of gas into the 70-mile pipeline, shared with the Xcel energy company, which carries natural gas from Rifle to the Vail area.
SourceGas, a “sister company” to Rocky Mountain Natural Gas, has been locked in a dispute with CMC for weeks over a lease for the five-acre compressor site, located northeast and over a ridge from the campus.
The company has said the compressor station is needed to boost the flow of natural gas along a pipeline that stretches between Rifle and Avon and serves 40,000 customers in the region.
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