( – promoted by Colorado Pols)
After being called out by Colorado Polsters, and letters to the editor, the GJ Sentinel has published a follow up article to the National Assoc of Royalty Owners meeting held recently in Parachute.
Energy worker weathers criticism for remarks at royalty owners meeting
A Grand Junction man says he had no obligation to reveal his oil and gas industry ties when he criticized a lawmaker over new state rules at a meeting Saturday.
But Tom Rutledge said he wishes he hadn’t attended the meeting.
“All it did was cause me a bunch of grief,” he said.
The article gives (indirect) props to posters here:
…That fact emerged later, including on blog sites and in comments posted on The Daily Sentinel Web site, GJSentinel.com, following its story on the meeting. Rutledge also was accused in Web postings of serving as a meeting “plant” for the industry and not even owning ranch land in North Park.
Apparently although quite happy to dish it out, Mr. Rutledge cannot take it very well:
He said the concerns he raised Saturday had nothing to do with Laramie, and the blog postings about him have been “very upsetting.”
“I’m simply trying to protect my property rights,” he said.
But, as Rep. Curry noted in the article, an exemption exists in the rules that allow drilling if the minerals cannot be developed via extended-reach (aka ‘directional’) drilling from less sensitive places nearby.
…Curry said she has since verified that rules designed to restrict drilling activities on some lands to protect wildlife allow for exemptions when directional drilling from nearby land isn’t technically or economically feasible.
Rutledge’s property is 320 acres, according to the article. That’s half a section, or a half-mile square. Directional drilling technology utilized in Colorado can extend at least a couple of thousand of feet, meaning that it is quite likely the resource CAN be targeted from somewhere nearby, and if not–as Rep. Curry noted–the exemption exists.
As a Landman–the person who bids on minerals at auctions, or negotiates with mineral-owners–one might assume that Mr. Rutledge understands the rudiments of directional drilling–and how much minerals are worth considering the technologies that would need to be employed to develop them.
So, in spite of the attempts to dodge it, the question remains…does Mr. Rutledge (who claims decades of expertise) really know so little about his business? Or is he attending these meetings to foment anger and agitate?
Leslie Robinson, a Democratic activist in Garfield County, also is upset, but because of Rutledge’s failure to mention his industry ties and the tone of his persistent questioning of Curry Saturday.
“I’m very concerned that this is setting the tone for the kind of tactics that some members of the industry are going to use during the 2010 election, that we are not going to be able to have civil public debate without somebody getting up and agitating the crowd like that,” she said.
Laramie Energy, predictably, denies any such motive.
“He wasn’t there to represent or cause disruption from Laramie’s standpoint or the industry’s standpoint. I think it was a matter of him voicing his concern about his mineral rights,” [Laramie executive] Leis said.
But we can all recall the shrill fear-mongering that the Chicken-Little Overblown Gaseous Agitators (COGA) used during the rulemaking and (defeated) A58 fight.
Buckle your seat belts kids, 2010 will be a wild, hyperbolic ride.
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and a special shout out to WestSloper who got the ball rolling on this one and to Ralphie who had the good sense to tape the meeting.
Great followup, Twitty.
I didn’t tape the royalty owners meeting in Parachute. I taped the Ritter/Bennet meeting in Grand Junction.
were posted yesterday under the‘Monday Open Thread’.
Apparently, as WestSloper pointed out, also in that thread, the land Mr. Rutledge owns is under a conservation easements. That means someone received substantial tax benefits (aka subsidies) to protect the wildlife habitat and open space on this land.
Again, as a Landman one can assume that Mr. Rutledge knows how to do a title search to learn about such encumbrances. Or perhaps he pocketed the tax benefit himself?
…and I readily admit to that accusation…but what exactly is the significance of this great flap? Was something decided at this meeting? And even in the realm of Gotcha, is there a So What here?
Is this about energy issues, or about the GJS falling down on the job in some absolutely scandalous way?
1) It further highlights the industry’s attempt to agitate and attack rather than engage in productive dialogue.
2) It does show that blogs provide useful information that real journalists often overlook.
3) The conservation easement issue is big news, props to WestSloper, for a few reasons. a) These lands clearly have been identified as having significant value–and North Park is well-known for it’s quality wildlife habitat; and b) substantial tax breaks are given to landowners who agree to protect their property. That means we ALL pay to protect these lands. Either Mr. Rutledge failed in his due diligence and somehow purchased property unaware that the land was under easement, he is fudging the truth knowing that the land was under easement and now either wants to develop it or is trying to prove his legitimacy as a mineral/land owner OR if he got the easement himself then took our tax dollars and wants to drill his land anyways.
It would be nice if those that got paid to do these things (i.e. journalists) did the digging themselves, but in the absence of that I am thankful that several Polsters are willing to do it for them.
There is more to this story, methinks, and I hope someone continues digging.
I guess I really, really want to know that. Because if there is an easement, it is an issue. It’s an issue because it would explain why companies are drilling all around his property but won’t cut a deal to drill on his property. In other words, it’s not the new drilling rules that are hurting him.
Unfortunately, with only 1500 residents or so, Jackson County has nothing on line. If there is an easement, it would be recorded, but with no online records it might take a day in the Jackson County Recorder’s office to find out for sure.
but am really swamped today, so any help is appreciated. Jackson County is beautiful though, if anyone is in for a roadtrip.
Since tax benefits accrue to easements, records might also be at the state…
…. and no, I’m not volunteering for that. I think Middle of the Road, as an Estes Park resident, is closest now that Trail Ridge Road is open… 😉
Quit volunteering me for shit, you devil. 🙂 (Unless you want to come with me–now that’s a different story altogether. POLSTER ROAD TRIP!!)
Although, I would love a road trip over to Walden. It’s so gorgeous there. One of my favorite places for a daytrip. Unfortunately, I’m in the middle of summer season here, so I’ll be lucky to get a bathroom break for the next four months, let alone a day off.
The Sentinel tried really hard to sympathize with this industry guy. Their subhead reads, “Energy worker weathers criticism,” when it should have said, “Energy worker defends his deceit at royalty meeting.”
From the story, Rutledge “told” Curry those (COGCC) rules will prevent development…that the blog postings about him “were upsetting”…that Laramie Energy said “he wasn’t there to disrupt the meeting….”
I’ll fill in the real verbiage because I was there at the meeting:
Rutledge harassed Curry and Houpt ….he’s upset because he was exposed….and he did purposely disrupt the meeting, regardless of what his bosses at Laramie say.
Let us revisit what the meeting host said in a recent LTE about Rutledge — that the story failed to mention:
Also, what the article left out, Rep. Kathleen Curry is perhaps the most powerful and persuasive oil-and-gas legislator….in the (solidly) majority party. Garfield County Commissioner TrГ©si Houpt is also probably one of the most influential county commissioners in the state regarding oil-and-gas issues — and she sits on the oil-and-gas state regulatory board, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Both are up for re-election next year.
It’s not too hard to connect the dots about what kind of game the industry is playing….and there’s no media up here in the way.
Ken Leis that was quoted in the Sentinel article the husband of Kathy Hall from COGA?
poor guy
You’ve done one hell of a job filling the gaps in and informing the public.
With the decline of the professional media, the need for citizen activists is even greater to stop corporate paid PR and advertising campaigns from misinforming the population.
That the professional media could do a much better job than we can if it were so inclined. (The last part of that sentence is really what’s important, IMHO.)
Take the question of the alleged conservation easement that we armwaved about this morning. If a professional news organization thought that was newsworthy, they would have no trouble sending someone to Walden to run that to ground. That’s complicated. First you’d have to get the legal description of his property, then you’d have to match that against recorded easements. It would help to know who owned the property at the time the easement, if any, was granted. It would take a while to document if it’s indeed true.
You’ll notice from the posts above that none of us “citizen journalists” have the time, money, patience, or even the inclination to do that. That’s the problem with working for free. We’ll usually be resource-limited into doing a half-assed job.
There’s still a place for the professional media, I believe. Although some of us do a little fact-checking and oversight here and there, we’re really just nibbling around the edges of most stories, trying to keep the professional media honest. We simply don’t have the resources to do much more.
n/t