Judge says further study needed on North Fork Valley project

DENVER (AP) - A judge says the U.S. government’s environmental analysis of a drilling plan for Colorado’s North Fork Valley needs more work.

U.S District Judge Lewis Babcock’s ruling Wednesday involves government agencies’ environmental analysis of the Bull Mountain project and an adjacent project that would drill about 175 gas wells northeast of Paonia (pay-OWN’-yuh) near McClure Pass.

The judge agreed with conservation groups that the government fell short in studying the indirect impacts of projects’ oil and gas production. He also ruled that the government didn’t look closely enough at the cumulative effect of drilling on the area’s mule deer and elk populations.

Babcock deferred a final ruling on the case, and instead ordered the sides to get together and try to reach an agreement on how to fix the shortfalls.