Commissioners asked to take hard stand on Aethon plan

Tuesday afternoon’s meeting of the Hot Springs County Commissioners began on a rather tense footing when Sonja Becker asked the commissioners why they were not on board regarding Aethon’s plan to dump oil field waste water and solids into Boysen Reservoir.

Chairman Tom Ryan said it was his understanding the solids have been dumped into Boysen since 1979 and the DEQ tells him the increase won’t cause the solids to go up, so he “has no heartburn with it.”

“I’ve never found the DEQ to be too lenient,” Ryan said. “We’re both government entities and that’s who we count on to represent us.”

Commissioner Jack Baird said the amount of pollution they’re putting in, compared to what the farmers upstream are doing, is minimal. “The regulation is not on the farmers,” he said, “so there’s not much I can say about it.”

Vice-chairman Phil Scheel agreed, saying, “I don’t like the EPA sticking their fingers in the state DEQ’s business. We’ll do it the Wyoming way. I’m confident they won’t do any harm.”

Becker asked if any of the commissioners had read the permit and they admitted they had not.

“While the DEQ may be here to support us, they don’t have the manpower to do the research on the documents Aethon provided,” she said. “The reports are seriously flawed. Even the EPA does not believe enough sampling has been done.

“This is not just a renewal, but a renewal with an increase, including a long-term increase. They plan 91 cfs (cubic feet per second) to go down Badwater Creek.”

“I think that’s a wonderful thing,” Scheel said. “Its another water source. Imagine how many more tons of alfalfa that water can produce.”

“The sodium is too high for that,” Becker replied. “This water is not fit for livestock consumption or irrigation. It will destroy the fields.”

Becker said the silts will settle out eventually and if there’s a good rain its going to blow all those solids right to the dam. “That will make that water toxic. It will affect the fisheries, drinking water and everything downstream.

“I would like to see the commissioners get behind this, stand up for the community and the water. Yes, there are a lot of jobs at risk, but what is more important?

“I talked to the governor about this and he asked me what the commissioners thought. I had to tell him you weren’t willing to take a stand against it and it made me very sad. Raising kids here you should be getting on this bandwagon.”

T-O Engineers updated the commissioners on capital improvement project at the airport. They are looking for the direction the commissioners would like to go on a few things and let them know there is the possibility of bumping up the airport master plan by a year, putting it in the 2020 budget.

The commissioners are ready to do that, even though the county wouldn’t see the grant monies until after the first year.

They also discussed various hangar configurations, talking about which ones would be the most fluid as they have a lot of different planes coming into the airport that have different needs for staying overnight.

There are a lot of pilots wanting to come in and overnight at the airport, but most of the time all the hangar space is filled. T-O will be looking into a 110’ x 100’ hangar that they believe would be the most effective.

Sheriff Jerimie Kraushaar brought in a list of the considerable damage done to the department’s vehicles from the July 6 hailstorm.

All of the Dodge Rams need at least a new hood and one has to have a new roof as well due to the dents. The jail also took a hit on their Durango.

Insurance deductibles are $5,000 per incident and Kraushaar brought in two bids for repairs. The commissioners asked him to get at least one more bid before they make a final decision.