After concerns from county commissioners and a warning letter from the Attorney General’s Office about El Paso County’s proposed oil and gas regulations, county planning staff have come up with a revised proposal for the commission to consider at its Jan. 31 meeting.

County spokesman Dave Rose said the commissioners will consider both the original and the new proposals in their discussions.

“I think they’ll have a long and extensive discussion next Tuesday,” Rose said.

In a statement, George Monsson, senior assistant county attorney, said, “The county staff has made some fairly significant revisions to the draft oil and gas proposal. We feel these are more in line to what the commissioners want to consider.”

The Attorney General’s Jan. 10 letter argued that the proposed county regulations would conflict with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s regulations and authority with regard to setbacks, a ban on excavated pits, water quality, wildlife impacts, visual and noise impacts and the overall permitting process.

The revised rules streamline the permitting process, mostly eliminate wildlife considerations and scale back visual and noise regulations, but keep the setback, open pit and water quality rules the Attorney General’s letter objected to.

READ MORE of this report from Andrew Wineke in the Gazette