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Managing Environmental Risks Associated with Gas Production in the Vicinity of Suburban and Rural Development

 

Viellenave, James H., Fontana, John V., and Seneshen, David M.

ESN Rocky Mountain, Golden, CO

 

Powerful risk evaluation and management practices, when routinely employed by petroleum companies, can dramatically reduce the incidence and severity of conflicts with emerging residential or agricultural owners where such land uses are starting to occur in the same areas.  Suburban and rural residential and pseudo-agricultural land uses are increasingly encroaching on areas that have been primarily open land or resource extraction.   In many cases, the mineral estate is severed from the surface, creating opportunities for conflict without the traditional “incentive” that royalty holders enjoy.  It is incumbent on the industry to adopt and implement pro-active management and development practices in order to minimize the evident problems in such areas.  The alternative is a combination of litigation and regulation, neither of which is less costly or time consuming, and whose effects are recognized to be more uncertain than the practice of risk reduction.

The adverse effects of failure to plan and implement such management practices, as well as the benefits of doing so, are presented in this paper.  Examples, primarily from the western U.S., but applicable to all areas of the country, are given related to tight gas exploration and development, gas plant operation, and coal bed methane development.