Throughout the spring and summer and into the fall, Dale and Becky Rasmussen made it a point to attend the monthly meetings of the Duchesne County Planning and Zoning Commission. The Pleasant Valley residents were determined to make sure their concerns about odors coming from production water evaporation ponds near their home and business were adequately addressed.

After months of working with the commission, RNI Trucking and Iowa Tanklines — the companies who own and operate the ponds — the Rasmussens say they are appreciative of the efforts that have been made, and are confident the smelly situation is being resolved.

“The first Wednesday of the month, that was our date night over at the county. It was like we had permanent seats there!” Becky Rasmussen said. “We learned a lot about evaporation ponds, and we learned that you can have the odors eliminated. But it takes time, dedication and money.”

The evaporation ponds take wastewater produced at oil wells. After the water is evaporated, the remaining oil can be recaptured and sold.

At its Nov. 4 meeting, the Planning and Zoning Commission found that RNI had met the last requirement of their conditional-use permit within the time frame allowed. The commission will hold no further public hearings on the matter.

“The bottom line is that the Planning Commission felt that RNI took prompt action,” said Duchesne County Planner Mike Hyde. “We will go out again in the spring and make sure the companies are prepared to deal with the problem so they don’t have a problem like they did this spring.”

Iowa Tanklines’ two ponds — which became operational in January — had previously fulfilled its conditional-use permit by quelling odors by August. RNI’s pond did not accept wastewater until June.

RNI stirred and oxygenated its pond and added microbes to eat bacteria causing the odor, said Chris Chapman, construction manager for RNI. Because the microbes don’t survive cold winters, new microbes will have to be added when the weather warms.

RNI had previously dealt with odor issues at its Bluebell disposal pond, and likes to stay ahead of the curve on potential problems at its ponds, Chapman said.

“We have always been proactive; we have never had a lot of complaints. This (Pleasant Valley) just took us a little longer because the pond wasn’t full,” Chapman said. “We will deal with it continually … we will implement it (corrective action) where ever it is needed.”

Rasmussen said that because they did not want to unfairly blame the ponds for the odors that plagued them throughout the summer months, including times when the intense sulfuric smell would wake them from sleep in the middle of the night, they were careful to identify the source.

“We would not just call in and say the smell was the ponds — or even that it was a specific pond, so we drove the road and found out where they were coming from,” she said. “We were doing our homework so that when we called to report the smells we knew they were legitimate.”

At night the gases coming off of the ponds became heavy in the cool air and could actually be traced as they followed the washes through the Rasmussen’s Pleasant Valley property. ITL ponds are just over 2 miles from the Rasmussen’s home and RNI’s pond is 4 miles away. The Rasmussens are the closest residents to the ponds.

Hyde had implemented a “complaint log” that listed the time and intensity of the smell that Pleasant Valley area residents said were bothering them. Names of the callers also went into the log.

“The commissioners on planning and zoning could go through the log and see that several people had called in and they could see it was legitimate,” Rasmussen said.

A visit to the ponds in October by planning and zoning members to talk to operators and neighbors also opened eyes, said Planning and Zoning Commission chairman Randy Mair.

“I don’t think we could have been very objective without doing that, that was something we needed to do to get both sides of the story,” Mair said.

The county has now revamped its disposal pond ordinance, enacting new restrictions on the placement of ponds in the future, Mair said.

“The buffer zones are bigger … and property lines now come into play,” he said. “Under the old ordinance, as long as they were a mile away from a residence that was okay, but if you owned a mile of property you could still put it right next to a residence.”

Disposal-pond operators are going out of their way to let neighbors know they are committed to keeping the odor down, Rasmussen said.

“Iowa Tanklines got some bad batches of water, we could smell the pond smell again … but Todd Bro (of RNI) called Dale, and I thought that was very considerate,” she said. “We can live with something like this.”

RNI representatives Ryan and Chris Chapman have provided the Rasmussens with their cell-phone numbers, asking them to call if they encounter resurgent odors in the future.

The publicity surrounding the problem with pond odors in Duchesne County has caught attention of westside Uintah County residents who want their county officials to address similar smelly situations arising from disposal ponds. The Rasmussens recently talked to a group of Randlett residents to discuss how they resolved their concerns with the disposal ponds.

“We just told the people what we had done out here, and about the complaint log. We told them we weren’t stopping the oil industry or the ponds, just how many they were putting out here — there was such a big saturation out here all the sudden. We told them you have to stand up for your rights. We told them how we got the county to back us up,” Becky Rasmussen said.