Company plans bioremediation facility

The Sublette County Planning and Zoning Commission is scheduled to hear a zone change application at a public hearing on Thursday, Oct. 17 to allow a company to create a bioremediation facility in the new Sand Draw Industrial Park located at the junction of highways 191 and 351.

The purpose of the facility would be to treat hydrocarbon-contaminated waste from nearby natural gas fields.

Curtis Flug of Newpark Environmental of Lander filed the application for a zone change on four lots in the industrial park. The lots are currently zoned for light industrial use, but Flug seeks to have the lots rezoned to heavy industrial use. About 18 acres would be affected by the zone change if approved by the commission.

Newpark already owns four other lots in the industrial park that are zoned for heavy industrial use. But an examination of the soils led the company to seek out the more suitable soils on the four additional lots that are currently zoned for light industrial use, thus the proposal for the zone change. According to Flug's application, the company needs to move onto these lots in order to comply with Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's request for soil consistency. The four lots at issue have a higher clay content than the four already zoned for heavy industrial use.

The bioremediation site would be created during the spring of 2003, with a produced water site being installed later that year as well. According to the application, the bioremediation site would consist of compost windrows, and Inberg Miller Engineers of Riverton will design this facility. The University of North Dakota Energy and Environmental Research Center will design the evaporation freeze/thaw facility.

Newpark Environmental Services is a subsidiary of Newpark Resources or Newpark Canada. The hearing is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Oct. 17 at the Sublette County Courthouse.