{"id":29380,"date":"2024-02-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/national-forest-accepts-second-round-of-comments-on-hd-mountains-drilling\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T00:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T06:55:17","slug":"national-forest-accepts-second-round-of-comments-on-hd-mountains-drilling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/national-forest-accepts-second-round-of-comments-on-hd-mountains-drilling\/","title":{"rendered":"National forest accepts second round of comments on HD Mountains drilling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A compressor station sits among rural homes east of Bayfield. Plans are being considered to build another compressor station to the east of it near the large gray building at the top of the photo, below the HD Mountains.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The San Juan National Forest Columbine Ranger District has announced a second 30-day comment period on the draft environmental assessment oil and gas development in the HD Mountains near Bayfield.<\/p>\n

Members of the public and environmental watchdogs had lamented during the previous comment period,<\/a> which ended Jan. 16, that certain documents cited in the 90-page EA were not available for review.<\/p>\n

The project in question is a proposal by Catamount Energy Partners to drill seven horizontal wells from an existing well pad and build 8.4 miles of pipeline. The well pad in question falls just over the county line into Archuleta County, and the pipeline would stretch back into La Plata County.<\/p>\n

The forest\u2019s preferred action would involve the drilling of seven horizontal wells from an existing well pad, which would disturb 1.6 acres on top of a previously disturbed 1.9 acres. It would also involve the construction of 8.4 miles of pipeline, most of which would follow forest roads.<\/p>\n

Only a half mile of pipeline would traverse undisturbed areas, and the entire project would result in the long-term disturbance of 3.55 acres.<\/p>\n

Drilling horizontal wells would allow Catamount to deplete 6.25 square miles of a coal-bed methane reservoir, a type of natural gas, sitting under the HD Mountains.<\/p>\n

\"The
The San Juan National Forest has released a draft environmental assessment of the Catamount Spring Creek Pipeline and Associated Fruitland Coal Gas Drilling Project. The project would entail the construction of 8.4 miles of pipeline, in red, primarily along existing roads, as well as the expansion of a well pad labeled PARGIN MTN UT 2. (Courtesy of the San Juan National Forest)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cI am not unable to comment on the best available science provided by Cottonwood for this analysis because I cannot find the Biological Evaluation,\u201d wrote Janine Fitzgerald, a longtime Bayfield resident and advocate for preserving the HD mountains, in a Jan. 11 comment. \u201cTherefore, entire sections of the EA, including all of 3.1 (environmental justice, fires\/fuels management, invasive\/noxious weeds, migratory bird, noise and recreation) which are not evaluated in the EA, are not available to the public. Please make these documents available in the public record and extend the comment period.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response, Columbine District Ranger Nick Glidden did just that.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to make sure everybody had access to those documents,\u201d he said. \u201cSo basically, we didn\u2019t have to, but we chose to because we\u2019ve traditionally provided those. So, we decided we\u2019ll continue on with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fitzgerald disagrees with the premise that the forest was not obligated to provide the biological evaluation, but said she was nonetheless satisfied with the outcome.<\/p>\n

All documents, including the biological evaluation, are available on the project webpage. <\/a><\/p>\n

The project has garnered attention of a small, but dedicated group of environmentalists with a vested interest in the HDs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know what they\u2019re looking for, and that\u2019s great,\u201d Glidden said. \u201cThis is part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some members of the public have called into question the thoroughness of the EA, which was completed by Cottonwood Consulting, a Durango-based contractor. The firm works in the oil and gas industry for both public and private entities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unfortunate from the public\u2019s point-of-view as CC is a contractor of fossil fuel production interests\/companies and with that comes a likely skewed\/distorted of information related to the Draft EA\u2019s creation,\u201d wrote Jimbo Buickerood, a longtime environmentalist in the region.<\/p>\n

The draft environmental assessment can be found on the webpage for the project, at fs.usda.gov\/project\/?project=63036,<\/a> or at the Columbine Ranger District office.<\/p>\n

Comments, which will be public record, can be submitted online or in writing to Columbine District Ranger, P.O. Box 439, 367 Pearl Street Bayfield, CO 81122 through Feb. 23.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

response to public objection, District Ranger opened comment period through Feb. 23<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[731,1098,738,221,28,477],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-29380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-bayfield","tag-energy","tag-environmental-issue","tag-gas-and-oil","tag-headlines","tag-natural-gas"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80730,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29380\/revisions\/80730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29380"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=29380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}