SUBLETTE COUNTY – Different discussions arose Feb. 2 about separate elements of owner Joe Ricketts’ plans for Jackson Fork Ranch and a luxury resort near Bondurant.

One planning and zoning issue scheduled for the Sublette County commissioners’ Feb. 2 meeting –  whether or not the proposed subterranean resort parking garage is a “similar use” to an industrial facility and if commissioners would permit its conditional use (CUP) – was not on the Friday agenda.

Commissioners then recommended its addition to their March 19 agenda; after relating a scheduling conflict, it will be added to their April 2 agenda. The Jackson Fork Ranch application states this underground garage is the beginning point for the resort’s construction and would include a “welcome center” for guests who park there.

Chevron Pit

The proposed 10.1-acre site is labeled as the Chevron Pit on Sublette County’s GIS map and in the 1980s was the location of three linked unpermitted, unlined drilling-fluids waste ponds. Chevron leased the parcel from rancher Robert McNeel to dump wastes from exploratory drilling at Kilgore Creek, a Forest Service well pad and existing ponds, and forest officials denied an expansion.

The Chevron Pit or McNeel Pit is located directly next to Upper Hoback Road and ¼ mile from the Hoback River.

In the meantime, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) responded to a records request with a 150-page folder of Chevron’s decision to abandon and reclaim the McNeel site, DEQ and Chevron water quality data and reports of the site’s geology.

Also included by DEQ was Chevron’s 1997 request for a groundwater pollution control program system for the 800- by 200-foot pit, 7 feet deep on a terrace remnant, that had been 90-percent cleared and backfilled. This was the company’s response to the DEQ’s 1983 notice of violation (NOV), it said.

Summary

In the “Summary of Existing Contamination,” Chevron reported concerns about “inorganic contaminants (that) do not appear to be decreasing over time.”

“In 1983, it was discovered that the pit was not authorized by WDEQ (a notice of violation was issued),” the request says. “WDEQ offered two options for resolution; 1) obtain ‘as-built’ authorization, or 2) abandon and reclaim the site. Chevron chose to abandon, and in 1983 the pit fluid was trucked off-site, or evaporated on-site with an ‘as-built’ permitted aeration system. The pit was then backfilled with soil.

“Four groundwater monitoring wells were constructed; one up-gradient and three down-gradient on the fringe of the pit. The pit area was reseeded the next year.”

Trends

Chevron said former DEQ employee Thomas Williams reported on Nov. 12, 1987, that results from his groundwater-sampling tests that the “following trends are apparent from the data:

“1. Seepage from former oil field waste disposal pits have had an impact on the inorganic quality of the unconfined shallow groundwater aquifer. The dissolved solids concentration in the down-gradient wells are elevated by several hundreds of milligrams per liter total dissolved solids in comparison to the up-gradient well. The concentrations of other cations and anions such as sulfate, chloride and sodium are also above background levels;

2. No organic contamination, as is evidenced by non-detectable concentrations of benzene, toluene and xylene, has been documented from the sampling analytical results;

3. The concentrations of inorganic contaminates do not appear to be decreasing over time."

Chevron continued, “The down-gradient monitoring wells were resampled 10 years later, in 1997. TPH (Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons) and BETX c (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes) continue to fall below cleanup standards. Background groundwater is assumed to be Class I. Total Dissolved Solids, sulfate, chromium and iron exceed Class I. All other constituents analyzed are within class.”

In 1997, DEQ permitted Chevron to reinstall water-quality monitoring wells; those records are not yet available.

‘Construction’

Very recently, former Sublette County Planning & Zoning Board member Pat Burroughs, who lives on Upper Hoback Road, questioned county planner Dennis Fornstrom about “construction activities” taking place for the permitted resort. and was told by Fornstrom the staging of heavy equipment was not “construction.”

Jackson Fork Ranch applied for and received a building permit in June 2023 to build a “guest cabin duplex” at the resort site, zoned “recreational services.”

At the Feb. 2 meeting, P&Z Board chair Chris Lacinak brought up the need for commissioners to determine what their intentions for “construction” had been with an accompanying resolution.

When they approved Ricketts’ resort in 2021, Sublette County commissioners stated in their resolution that “cabins” would be allowed and that Ricketts would follow the Wyoming Game and Fish (G&F) recommendation that no construction activities take place between Nov. 15 and April 30, due to mule deer migration and critical winter range for moose and elk.

“You brought this back to the floor in 2021 – is this what you meant to mean?,” he said. “What is your intent … for this applicant and others?”

Lacinak said he asked Pinedale G&F’s Brandon Scurlock what the wildlife agency to be “construction” activities and was told “no ground-disturbing activity, heavy equipment, etc.

White replied, “This has been brought to our attention. Permission was given to them by Sublette County (Fornstrom) to do what they’re doing there. It will be resolved.”

During public comment, neighboring landowner Dan Bailey reminded commissioners of the resolution and asked White to determine if then heavy equipment staging and plowing violated the intent of the resolution.

“We are well aware of the situation and working through it,” White said. “It will be resolved. … We will get back to you with an interpretation.”

Bailey also noted that in county zoning “a cabin is not defined as a multi-unit structure” and in fact not defined at all, but “multiple-family dwelling” fits the bill for the proposed duplex cabin.

As for Ricketts’ resort “construction activities,” Burroughs said, ranch employees brought in a large bulldozer, excavators and a bucket for core sampling and to support construction on the resort’s parcel.

On Feb. 4 a drive up Upper Hoback Road revealed obvious signs of plowing, grading and staging, including directly across from the old Chevron Pit, across sagebrush flats and along fencelines around the Jackson Fork Ranch’s planned resort.