Borough officials discuss plans to develop CBM regulations

MAT-SU -- The Mat-Su Borough Planning Department and Borough Assembly met last week to open a discussion between the two groups about potential code changes regulating coal-bed methane development.

At the meeting, Assembly Member Jim Colver gave a presentation about a trip he recently took to Colorado and New Mexico to look at areas where CBM was being developed. Colver said he had discussed his trip with Josh Joswick, a La Plata, Colo., county commissioner who visited Alaska recently to take part in the Oil and Gas Accountability Project's Alaska Coalbed Methane Summit.

Colver said he met with some local officials and property owners in the areas he visited, including sites near Aspen and in Durango, Rifle and Silt, Colo., as well as Farmington, N.M. He described the area and showed slides taken on his visit, and talked about regulations that were in place in those areas, as well as suggestions for regulations within the Mat-Su Borough and Alaska.

The slides prompted several questions from members of the planning board and assembly, such as what regulations other communities had in place, how they perceived their relationship with CBM companies and how local governments in the Lower 48 assessed the land used by the companies. Susan Dickinson, the borough planning director, briefed the group on an outline of information borough staff are presently working on.

"We want to collect good information, not have a knee-jerk reaction," Dickinson said. "We are looking at the state regulatory framework -- I think they are looking at it, too."

Dickinson said the city of Houston is processing three conditional-use permits for natural resource extraction. Through the process, they're hoping to minimize the impact of CBM traffic on local access roads, address safety on those roads and limit noise, dust and glare generated by the added traffic. Setbacks for development from public right-of-ways are also being addressed, she said.

But Houston council members recently asked that the company be exempted from the CUP process, due primarily to favorable dealings they had had with Evergreen previously. In the past two months, the city has passed three resolutions relating to Evergreen -- one Sept. 11 agreeing to conditions of two conditional-use permits for natural resource extraction within the city, one Oct. 9 requesting Evergreen be exempted from the conditional-use permit process in the future within the city, and another Oct. 9 stating the borough to amend the city's zoning plan to allow other companies to be exempted from the process. The ordinance, according to borough staff, overturned a less restrictive previous ordinance that allowed CBM development companies to operate within the city without the need for a conditional-use permit.

Angela Rosas, a city council member, said the intent of the new ordinance was to allow companies who have been through the conditional use permitting process and proven their ability to work with the city to be exempted from going through the full conditional use process for each new site.

Dickinson said work sessions are being scheduled for the borough assembly and others interested in the process to find out more about particular aspects of CBM development. It's part of what will likely become an ordinance pertaining to CBM development -- an ordinance requested by Borough Mayor Tim Anderson at a previous assembly meeting. As it is developed, Anderson said, it will go through the typical process a planning-related ordinance is subject to. First, he said, it'll go before the borough planning commission, where public meetings will be held and changes will likely be made before it's forwarded to the assembly for final approval.

It may not be an easy process to get everyone on the planning commission -- or on the assembly -- to agree with what an ordinance pertaining to CBM development should contain. Assembly member Talis Colberg, in pointing that out, told the two bodies he was a little skeptical of what may come out of the planning commission.

"My goal would be to set operational standards and requirements so sensible it would be politically very difficult to throw out," Colberg said.

Tuesday, the assembly tossed around potential dates for upcoming workshops but didn't settle on a final schedule. Staff at the borough clerk's office said a firmer schedule should be available by next week.

The discussion of the meeting times came on the heels of the borough's participation in the first of several planned organizational meetings with state agencies about CBM development. Anderson, Tuesday, said he was encouraged by the first meeting, and hopeful of what may come out of the process initiated by the Department of Natural Resources to provide guidelines to protect property owners through the CBM development process.

"I see a real possibility for the group to come together and develop some real guidelines," Anderson said.