As oil and gas rigs creep closer to Colorado neighborhoods, it still isn’t clear whether local governments can regulate the industry on their own or if they must solely stick to the state’s rules.
Environmental groups trying to compel the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to mitigate the climate change impacts of coal mine methane are encouraged by today’s BLM decision to reconsider approval of a mine expansion on Colorado’s Western Slope.
Plans by a Denver-based company to capture and convert to energy methane gas spewing from a coal mine in western Colorado came as a surprise to environmentalists who have been urging such action for years and won praise from at least one potential customer, the Aspen Skiing Company. Holy Cross Energy, a Glenwood Springs-based electric co-op stretching from Aspen to Vail, is working with Denver-based Vessels Coal Gas to recover coal mine methane at Oxbow Mining’s Sanborn Creek Mine in Gunnison County, according to the Vessels website.
Obviously pleased with last week’s roadless ruling allowing Oxbow Mining to vent more methane at is Elk Creek Mine near Paonia, a company spokesman over the weekend also took the opportunity to skewer environmentalists on the issue of methane capture or flaring.
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