Environmental Monitoring Including Soils – Incorporated in Mitigation Plans for the Tiffany Enhanced CBM Project

Beyond Pine River Ranches, environmental monitoring was next applied to other areas of concern, such as the enhanced methane recovery project and infill drilling of prior designated spacing units. With the luxury of now having historic water quality and bradenhead pressure data compiled at the BLM-SJRA, this database provided a natural baseline for two specific areas of atypical natural gas development. When the 15-½ square mile Tiffany Unit (centered about six miles southeast of Ignacio, Colorado) was proposed for enhanced coalbed methane recovery through nitrogen injection, approval included a monitoring plan incorporating BLM baseline data. A Contingency Plan, largely developed by the BLM-SJRA in cooperation with the COGCC and the Tiffany Unit operator, stipulated a representative 21-well water-quality monitoring program. This “Plan” utilized baseline parameters obtained prior to the January 1998 commencement of nitrogen injection into the coalbeds. Besides water quality and bradenhead pressure monitoring, this plan incorporated soil vapor monitoring with threshold parameter action levels. Several defective plugged and abandoned well bores were identified by high concentrations of methane in the surrounding soil. These wells were re-entered and remediated prior to nitrogen injection.

In 1998 the COGCC received an application involving infill drilling of Fruitland coalbed wells within five miles of the northern Basin rim (J.M. Huber proposal). With the precedent of the Tiffany Enhanced Methane Recovery Unit Plan, similar environmental monitoring was required. Although no Federal jurisdiction was involved in this application, the San Juan Field Office assisted in a consulting role. The operator prepared a Development Plan, which was approved by the COGCC. The Development Plan included water quality monitoring in seventeen domestic water wells and soil gas monitoring along the outcrop of the Fruitland Formation. (Huber and LT Environmental, 1998).