O&G WATCHDOG ASKS REGULATORS TO REMOVE COUNTY'S COMMENT LETTER
Today, local oil and gas activist organization, Citizens for a Healthy Community, Executive Director Natasha Léger, asked the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) to remove a comment letter submitted by Commissioner Wendell Koontz from the record and consideration at an upcoming hearing.
Léger makes this request just one week before the COGCC is expected to hear a petition for rulemaking to adopt rules to evaluate and address cumulative air impacts caused by oil and gas development. Commissioner Koontz's comment letter, sent on behalf of Delta County Commissioners, dated Nov. 30, 2022 but submitted Dec. 5, 2022, rejects the rulemaking requests and comes as a surprise since discussion on the topic was not held in a public meeting before the Board of County Commissioners. It's for this reason that Léger has asked that the letter be removed calling it "an invalid action and in violation of Colorado's Open Meeting Law."
DCCR contacted Commissioner Koontz about the lack of public participation in the decision to put Delta County on record in opposite of the petition. Koontz told DCCR that cumulative impacts is consistent with the Master Plan whose development had multiple public hearings. He also referred to the 23-member Western and Rural Local Government Coalition (WRLC), of which Delta County is a member, saying public meetings were held although notice of such meetings has not been offered.
READ CHC'S LETTER
READ KOONTZ COMMENT
COMMISSIONERS REMAND LAND USE CODE REVISIONS BACK TO PLANNING
At this morning's Land Use Code revision hearing, County Commissioners voted to send the 200-page document back to the Planning Commission (PC) with a mandate to focus on reinstating variance options to lot sizing — a tool the PC recommended deleting from the code.
The County has seen 50-plus such variances in the past year making the use of this tool the norm rather than the exception for which it's intended. While County Commissioners agreed that the use of variances shouldn't be the rule, they felt that they are still needed to address some circumstances.
The Planning Commission plans to return an updated version to the Board of County Commissioners in early January 2023.
G50 BOAT RAMP GETS OFFICIAL NAME
Commissioners voted on Tuesday to name the County’s new river access location on G50 Road: Sandhill Crane Boat Ramp. In a contest among Delta County staffers, several unique names were tossed into the hat including one with local mystique — Witch Bridge. Commissioner Don Suppes told the audience about the lore behind the old bridge once located near the ramp project where local youngsters would scare each other into crossing the bridge in search of the fabled River Witch. While many liked the name — and story behind it — the prevalence of birds, especially cranes, in the area won out.
Too bad, River Witch Boat Ramp would have been really cool.