POSTINDEPENDENT.COM
TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2012
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Land-use code review continuing on schedule John Stroud Post Independent Staff
GLENWOOD SPRINGS — A special land-use code advisory committee appointed by Garfield County commissioners earlier this year is on track to finish its review and offer some recommendations by this summer. “We should have no troubles meeting the time line,” committee spokesman Mark Nieslanik of Carbondale said in brief report to the Board of County Commissioners on Monday. The committee is working on a parallel path with the Garfield County Planning Commission to review and recommend further
revisions aimed at streamlining the land-use review process. The 12-person advisory committee, made up of citizens, landowners and development interests, has been meeting twice a month to work through the code. It meets again tonight at 5:30 p.m. at the Garfield County Administration Building on Eighth Street in Glenwood Springs. Meetings are open to the public, and comments are welcome. Commissioners appointed the committee in February to make recommendations regarding the county’s land-use codes. The work is in follow-up to recom-
mendations made by a special working group and consultants last year. The new committee is charged with looking at the bigger picture, as the county commissioners continue their effort to make the land-use application and review process more business friendly. In other business at Monday’s meeting, the commissioners: • OK’d a $1,000 funding request from the Rifle Middle School Destination Imagination team, which has qualified for the “Globals” competition in Knoxville, Tenn., in June. The team has been able to raise part of the $8,500 it needs to make
the trip, student members of the team reported to the commissioners in making their request. • Agreed to a request by Garfield County Fair Board members to reinstate funding for cooling fans to be used in the livestock holding area at the county fairgrounds during the county fair in August. The expense was initially removed from this year’s budget. Fair organizers said it’s a safety issue for the animals to have the fans. • Directed county staff to work with the Rifle 4-H group to allow the air rifle and pistol shooting group to continue using the
indoor arena at the fairgrounds for practice. The group was initially told it could not use the indoor facility for safety reasons after new windows were installed and other renovations were made. • Agreed to sign a letter of support for a federal mineral leasing funds grant request by the town of New Castle for pedestrian and bicycle safety improvements at the Interstate 70 interchange and County Road 335 intersection. The town intends to fund 30 percent of the estimate $390,000 project, according to New Castle Trustee Greg Russi. jstroud@postindependent.com
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Man found dead on tracks Police chief says same man apparently tried to throw himself under an Amtrak train on April 25 John Colson Post Independent Staff
GLENWOOD SPRINGS — A man apparently committed suicide Friday evening by throwing himself under the wheels of a train along Seventh Street west of the Amtrak depot, Glenwood Springs Police confirmed on Monday. The Garfield County Coroner’s office confirmed on Monday that the dead man was Dion Herrera, 42, of Glenwood Springs and Highlands Ranch. Herrera was discovered on the railroad tracks by passersby at approximately 11 p.m. Friday, according to Police Chief Terry Wilson. The reporting parties first flagged down an oncoming train to keep it from running over Herrera’s body before calling police at 11:30 p.m. “The focus on this is as a suicide,” Wilson said. Wilson said Herrera is believed to have been killed a couple of hours earlier and some distance to the west of
where he was found. Wilson said trains had been moving back and forth in the switching yard at about 9:30 that night, and no other trains had passed through the area between then and about 11 p.m. After checking with railroad personnel, Wilson reported, “It would appear they had absolutely no idea that they had impacted anything or anyone.” Wilson said Herrera apparently tried to throw himself under an Amtrak train at the Glenwood Springs depot on April 25. That attempt failed when Herrera hit his head on the train’s undercarriage. He was taken to Valley View Hospital for treatment and later transferred to a facility on the Front Range, Wilson said. Wilson said that his officers remembered seeing Herrera around the Glenwood Springs area over the past year or so. Wilson said Herrera was not homeless, strictly speaking, because he would return to the Front Range periodically to live with family members. Herrera was single, unemployed, and had only recently returned to the Glenwood Springs area following his recovery from the April 25 incident, according to Glenwood Springs police and the coroner’s office. A funeral home in Pueblo is handling the arrangements for Herrera’s family. jcolson@postindependent.com
SEEP FROM A1 Wynn’s quarterly update of oil and gas activity in Garfield County included an overview of the findings by independent consultant Geoff Thyne. The University of Wyoming geologist was hired by the county last year to study ongoing concerns by West Divide Creek resident Lisa Bracken. Thyne reported that recent testing indicates no presence of “thermogenic” gas, and that the 2004 seep “is on a path toward being remediated.” “I think we have reached the point of diminishing returns in terms of expending county resources unless there is a big change,” Thyne reported. “The reality is that the 2004 seep is relatively small, has been remediated as best they can manage, been sampled a lot and had several studies associated with the seep and surrounding area.” But Bracken remains unconvinced until more localized groundwater monitoring is done, which she welcomes the county to do on her property. The 2008 seep emerged around the time new drilling operations began farther to the north of the existing monitoring wells and the 2004 seep, Bracken said in response to Wynn’s report to the BOCC on Monday. Data from those monitoring wells is irrelevant to what’s happening with the newer seep, she said. She also pointed to soil samples taken in the more immediate area of the seep that continue to show evidence of thermogenic gas. “I appreciate what the state and the county have done to date, and I’m not dis-
counting that,” Bracken said. “But I think there has been an effort to try to characterize everything that has happened in Divide Creek based on irrelevant data.” The “missing piece,” she said, is to install a shallow groundwater well on her property. Bracken turned down a previous offer from the state to place a well on her property due to language in the contract, but she said she is still open to doing so. Bracken said it will be increasingly important to continue and expand monitoring efforts as Encana prepares to employ a new type of horizontal fracturing with a set of new proposed well permits currently before the COGCC. Bracken has asked the COGCC to delay the permits until the county can gather more data. Earlier this year, the county agreed to proceed with a larger monitoring effort in the area south of Silt aimed at studying a possible link between natural gas development and methane found in shallow groundwater. The county has contracted with GeoTrans Inc. to complete the third phase of that ongoing study for roughly $95,000. Wynn said in his Monday report that the most recent data from the West Divide Creek monitoring wells also indicates that benzene levels are dropping from previous levels and are now “approaching regulatory limits.” That was determined in findings from the COGCC and affirmed by Thyne’s analysis, he said. jstroud@postindependent.com
LEASE FROM A1 According to SourceGas, the compressor station is needed to repressurize gas in a pipeline from Rifle to Avon that crosses CMC property. “I had this prepared to address a decision to validate the lease,” said student Robert Morrison of the school’s Sustainability Program, referring to a statement he was prepared to read but did not. Neighbors, students and faculty objected to the deal earlier this year, when it became public knowledge, and pushed the board to re-evaluate Jensen’s agreement. A second site was proposed, near an existing water tower that serves the school, and last week the board of trustees suggested a professional facilitator be hired to help the two sides work out their differences. At the same time, SourceGas asked for a direct meeting with
the board of trustees at their Monday meeting. The request was denied because the agenda already was full, school spokesperson Debra Crawford told the Post Independent. Shelbourn told the Post Independent on May 9 that the company is not interested in working with a facilitator. At the meeting Monday, the board came out of executive session and unanimously approved, without discussion or comment, a motion by West Garfield Trustee Mary Ellen Denomy to “not recognize a valid lease between CMC and SourceGas.” The board then voted, also unanimously and without comment, to pass a motion by Routt County Trustee Ken Brenner. That motion was to “rescind and withdraw” the school’s authorization for SourceGas to seek approvals from Garfield
County for placement of the compressor station on school land. During a public comment session, the board’s decision drew a mixed response. A letter to the board, written by students Morrison and Erica Johns, stated that students and faculty feel the second recommended site might be acceptable to those who objected to the first site. But “mitigation” should be sought from SourceGas, to address “the larger impacts associated with the industry,” the letter continues. Another suggestion brought up at the trustees meeting was that SourceGas use a parcel owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in the same general area as CMC. SourceGas officials said at a May 2 meeting with the college community that the BLM had
already rejected one company proposal for a site on public land, driving SourceGas to turn to the CMC site. Some at the meeting, such as Bart Levine, of the A.M. Gas supply firm, argued that the school’s move could endanger gas service to a variety of customers in the Roaring Fork and Eagle River valleys. Levine and others asked the trustees to reconsider their earlier decision, and honor the SourceGas lease for a site. Maci Berkeley, who owns property near to the SourceGas compressor site, said she was “really shocked” by the decision to toss out the lease and urged the school to go with the second site as proposed by the students. Others, including nearby ranchers Jim Nieslanik and his son, Jeff, said they were worried that without an agreement with
CMC, the company might try to force its compressor station onto private lands, perhaps by using powers of eminent domain. “I’m not sure how this thing’s going to to work out here,” said Jim Nieslanik after the meeting. He was one of a group of ranchers who, in the 1970s, together donated the 680 acres of land that make up the Spring Valley campus. “They’ve got to move forward,” Nieslanik said, referring to SourceGas and its need for a site. “So now it’s going to be up to the attorneys.” Trustee Brenner, speaking with Jim and Jeff Nieslanik after the meeting, reassured them, “We’re not throwing you to the wolves. You ought to know us better than that.” jcolson@postindependent.com