INSPEC16866 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

z III. COMMENTS -COMPLIANCE Below are comments on the inspection. The comments include discussion of observations made during the inspection. Comments also describe any enforcement actions taken during the inspection and the }acts or evidence supporting the enforcement action. This was a partial inspection conducted by Joe Dudash of the Colorado Division of Minerals and Geology. Mark Milner represented the operator. The focus of the inspection was the methane de- gas pad for wells CBM-1, CBM-2 and CBM-3 and the associated roads. The light use road up to the drill pad was on private land and BLM land. The operator was experiencing a lot of difficulty with wet roads. Earthmoving equipment was getting stuck in the deep mud. The operator decided to remove the saturated mud down to dry subsoil or bedrock. In doing this, a lot of soil was windrowed alongside the road. No sediment control structures were in place to contain any erosion of the windrowed material, although no such erosion was evident at the time of the inspection. Also, in the construction of the light use road, the topsoil had not been segregated from the subsoil material. Therefore, NOV CV-2001-007 was issued for failure to construct the light use road to control or prevent erosion or siltation and for failure to segregate topsoil from other soil materials in the construction of the light use road. The final road configuration appeared to be stable and passable. Some culverts have been installed. These culverts are all 12 inches in diameter. The operator may have to install larger diameter road culverts in Coal Creek. The drilling of CBM-1, 2 and 3 has been completed. The drill rig has moved offsite to do some drilling at West Elk. There is one methane de-gas pump onsite, on well CBM-1. One more pump may be added. The pad upland diversion ditch is functional, although the east side has some low spots. The water that has collected in these low spots may have saturated the slope below the diversion ditch and made the east side of the drill pad very muddy. The upland diversion ditch needs to be recut on the east side to eliminate the low spots. The ditch that drains the east side of the pad runs perpendicular into the east side collection ditch. This junction of the two ditches is silting up. The pad ditch could be recut so that it joins the east side collection ditch at an angle, thereby reducing sedimentation at the juncture of the two ditches. The east side collection ditch is also silting up where the slope gradient flattens out. This area will need cleaning out soon. The south side collection ditch is also silting up. In addition, more straw bales need to be placed on the south side, and at the lowest point of the south collection ditch.