Rules regulating drilling and the controversial fracking technique were approved Tuesday by the Idaho Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

The rules, aimed at protecting surface and groundwater, and landowners were approved by a 3-0 vote with acting Gov. Brad Little recusing himself because he is negotiating with a company seeking drilling rights. Little, Idaho’s lieutenant governor, was standing in for Idaho Gov. Butch Otter who is at a conference in Maui.

Secretary of State Ben Ysursa, state schools chief Tom Luna and State Controller Donna Jones voted to send the rules to the Idaho Legislature for final approval. Attorney General Lawrence Wasden, who was attending the meeting by phone, left before the vote.

The rules were developed in a negotiated rulemaking that included representatives of the oil and gas industry, environmentalists, local governments and several residents of Payette and Washington counties where drilling already has started or leasing of drilling rights is going on.

The rules set a 15-day period for public comments for drilling and well treatments, also called mini-fracking because liquids are pumped down wells under high pressure to increase flows. Horizontal fracturing, or fracking is done only in shale deposits and uses higher pressures.

The gas in southwest Idaho is not found in shale and no one is talking about fracking here. But many of the same fluids are used in well treatments and the rules require pits used to hold the liquids be lined. No pits are allowed in areas set aside for drinking water protection.

The rules also set up bonding requiring $10,000 plus an additional dollar for every foot drilled. A company could have up to 30 wells for a $150,000 bond, under the rules.

Owners of the surface rights, which aren’t necessarily tied to the subsurface drilling rights, must be notified 60 days in advance of drilling. The state would get no more than $5,000 bond to cover lost agricultural income and lost value in improvements.

That was the limit of the commission’s authority, said Eric Wilson, of the Idaho Department of Lands, who wrote the rules and if they wanted to do more; “we believe there would need to be statutory changes.”

Little, chairing the Oil and Gas Commission and the Land Board for the first time, asked how they would be compensated if the land had a higher value such as development.

Tom Schultz, the new Department of Lands director, who just came from Montana said the experience in other states is that with millions in profits at stake companies usually seeks quick fair deals.

“The value tends to be standardized,” he said.

Amanda Buchanan, a Weiser resident who participated in the rulemaking, urged the commission to protect landowners.

“What you consider to be a potential economic boon for the state could be a devastating loss to a property owner's single largest investment, the land she lives on,” Buchanan said.

She and others urged the commission to ban cancer-causing liquids for use in fracking.

So far Bridge Resources and its partner, Paramax Resources Ltd., both of Canada, have drilled 11 wells in Payette County. Three of the 11 wells can produce at economic levels naturally. Four require stimulation through fracking, officials said. The other four were dry.

But Bridge announced last week it was selling off its Idaho properties. It had no representative at the meeting.

Instead Richard Brown and Chris Weiser, of the Arkansas exploration company Weiser-Brown testified. Its Idaho subsidiary, Snake River Oil and Gas, has been leasing drilling rights throughout the region and already has 24 people working in the state.

“We think these rules allow us to explore,” Brown said, praising the Lands staff and negotiators.

Weiser, who serves on Arkansas’ Oil and Gas Commission, called the rules a good start.

“If our assumptions are right, we’ll be here for many years,” he said.