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UELOPMENT: <br />OP <br />> Co ntinued from Page One <br />Explosion at one well killed worker <br />"I quickly learned that was not <br />the smartest move to make," <br />Mackley said. "I was lucky I got <br />my ranch back. But the compa- <br />nies did get more responsible <br />over time." <br />Mackley said many of his prob- <br />lems occurred before regulatory <br />changes were made by the oil and <br />gas commission. He credited Di- <br />rector Rich Griebling with im- <br />proving cooperation among oper- <br />ators and landowners. <br />"We're all painting the oil and <br />gas commission with black hats," <br />McCown said. `But they're doing <br />exactly what the statutes man- <br />date them to do — to get the re- <br />source out of the ground in the <br />most efficient way possible. <br />That's where the problem lies, in <br />the statutes." <br />Delta County Commissioner <br />Ted Hayden found the gathering <br />informative. <br />"We know this is coming, but I <br />think we're in a position to have <br />some great input into how it's <br />done. We shouldn't make the <br />same mistakes the other counties <br />did." <br />"We'll probably hire someone <br />to deal with these gas wells," Hay- <br />den said. , <br />"If we have as much develop- <br />ment as they're talking about, <br />we'll have to have someone to an- <br />swer questions. We don't want <br />the people of Delta County saying <br />they can't get their questions <br />answered." <br />Hayden pointed out that of the <br />almost 100 conventional wells <br />drilled in Delta County, only one <br />produced gas. <br />"So I'm a little skeptical this is <br />all going to happen," he said. <br />■ <br />Mike McKibbin can be reached <br />via e-mail at mmckibbin@gids.com. <br />site. A Rulison landowner, Roy <br />Savage, said for one well he re- <br />corded 250 heavy -haul truck trips <br />from drilling to production. <br />Another Rulison landowner, <br />Arnold Mackley, has had around <br />a dozen wells drilled on his prop- <br />erty since he first signed a miner- <br />al rights lease in the 1960s. He re- <br />called an explosion at one of the <br />wells killed one worker and seri- <br />ously injured another. <br />"The workers out there didn't <br />know the address because they <br />didn't live around here," Mackley <br />said, "so they couldn't tell the <br />emergency people where to come. <br />It took them an hour and a half to <br />respond because of that." <br />At one point, he hired an attor- <br />ney and sued the U.S. Department <br />of Energy and Mobil Oil over a <br />flaring dispute. <br />