Visual impact of Evergreen’s shallow gas wells minimal; could bring 500 new jobs to Mat-Su

Kay Cashman, PNA publisher

Evergreen Resources’ top executive Mark Sexton says people who have grown up in the oil and gas industry with “big, deep wells in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, offshore and onshore, are generally surprised at how low impact coalbed methane development is” to the Raton Basin in southern Colorado where Evergreen Resources has more than 900 wells in a 400 square mile area.

“You can drive right through the middle of the field and wonder where all the wells are,” Sexton told PNA in an Oct. 28 interview.

When they are shown a well, “they say, ‘is that all?’

“Our wells look like modified water wells. We have won awards for visual impact,” he said.

The most recent award the company took was from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission for outstanding oil and gas operations in 2001. The award recognized visual impact mitigation.

Greg Walcher, Colorado DNR director, said, “Evergreen has utilized ideas from landowners to enhance the visual appeal of its operations in Las Animas County. Evergreen has taken some of these ideas such as creative use of landscaping and decreasing the footprint of the location and has used them to mitigate the visual impact of their wells.”

Evergreen said it has invited landowner comments through private consultation and public forums.

Subsidiary Evergreen Resources (Alaska) Corp. is doing exploratory drilling at the company’s Pioneer unit in the Matanuska Susitna Borough between Wasilla and Houston. (See related story on page 1.)

Because there is “more topography in Alaska, more trees and variations,” the visual impact should be the same or even less in Alaska than it is in Colorado, Sexton said.

If the Pioneer unit exploration program is “as successful as we expect,” Evergreen will be opening a field office adjacent to the unit early next year — i.e. “somewhere along the Parks Highway near Wasilla or Houston,” Sexton told PNA in late July.

“The Matanuska Valley has the same type of coalbed methane resource potential as our leasehold properties in southern Colorado’s Raton basin,” he said, where the company employs directly and through contractors approximately 500 people.

Not only could development of the Pioneer unit between Houston and Wasilla mean new jobs, Evergreen is also the largest taxpayer in Las Animas County, Colorado.

“County residents are now paying half the taxes they would be paying the county if the natural gas industry had not developed over the last seven years,” Sexton said.

Sexton is president and CEO of both Evergreen Resources Inc. and its Alaska subsidiary.