An overflow crowd showed up Monday to plead with — and in some cases berate — state regulators over several oil and gas drilling operations slated for neighborhoods along the Front Range.
Development proposals in Broomfield and Boulder County and the recent approval of two dozen wells near a school in Weld County drew denunciations from a long line of people — some wearing surgical masks emblazoned with anti-fracking messages — during a boisterous Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission meeting.
A common theme heard in the hearing room was the potential health hazards wells pose to homeowners and to children attending nearby schools. Several elected officials from Broomfield and Boulder and Adams counties told the commissioners of their concerns about drilling so close to homes.
Broomfield City Councilman Kevin Kreeger painted a dire picture of the effects of oil and gas operations. He said a “belch” of toxic fumes from a well pad in neighboring Erie had left families with nosebleeds and covered patio furniture in an oily film.
“If the oily residue is covering the patio furniture, it means it’s in the air — it’s a fine mist,” Kreeger said.
His council colleague, Sharon Tessier, said she was uncomfortable with how prevalent drilling was becoming in some metro Denver neighborhoods and wanted permitting by the state to be more rigorous.
“I want to make sure there is no normalizing of the abnormal,” she said.
Broomfield City Council last week approved an operational agreement with Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. to drill 84 wells along the Northwest Parkway. But several council members said they felt they had no choice, given that state law limits what control municipalities have over drilling operations.
The COGCC has yet to issue permits to Extraction for those wells. On Monday, the commissioners had been scheduled to vote on whether to approve well spacing for the project but pulled most of the well pads from the agenda so they could further discuss the issue Tuesday.
Barbara Binder, an Adams County resident whose neighborhood would be just over 1,000 feet from 49 of Extraction’s wells, just over the county line in Broomfield, said she and her neighbors had little input into the project.
“All directly affected and impacted residents need a voice,” she told the commissioners. “Large-scale oil and gas does not belong next to residential communities.”
At least two commissioners expressed concern about the proximity of Extraction’s proposed wells to nearly 200 homes in Adams County.
“I’m concerned about whether Adams County had appropriate notification and had a chance to participate in finding a solution to these proceedings,” commissioner Erin Overturf said.
A spokesman for Extraction declined to comment Monday. Dan Haley, head of the industry’s trade group, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, told The Denver Post in a statement that Colorado’s energy industry is heavily regulated and provides the state a vital economic boost.
“As Colorado communities continue to grow and expand, it is important to keep in mind where our natural resources exist, the value that development provides our economy and our national security, and the respect we must have for private property rights,” he said. “Colorado natural resource development, done under strict regulations, provides important societal benefits that can’t be dismissed or ignored, from our cars and the roads we drive on, to the clothes we wear, the paint on our walls, and the smartphones in our hands.”
Heidi Gill, founder of the Urban Solution Group, applauded Extraction for spending months hammering out an agreement with Broomfield that will have the company going well beyond state requirements for operation of its well pads — be it bigger setbacks, quieter equipment or higher levels of insurance coverage than what the state requires.
Gill, whose firm works with the energy industry to mitigate the effects of drilling, said Extraction “is a great example of an operator coming to the table.”
But otherwise, the more than 50 people waiting to speak to the commission Monday lambasted the oil and gas industry and what they described as the cozy relationship it has with the COGCC.
The meeting was standing-room only, with a long line of people stretched out the small hearing room waiting to step up to the microphone. COGCC chairman John Benton asked for order several times as audience members clapped or held signs during the proceedings.
Several speakers addressed drilling plans in Boulder County, where Crestone Peak Resources wants to put 180 wells into production over a 12-square-mile area between Lafayette and Longmont. Jan Wilson appealed to the commissioners to protect residents from what she said would be an intense industrial operation close to homes.
“I’m the one having the impacts — they’re the ones making the money,” Wilson said of Crestone.
Patricia Nelson, whose son is enrolled at Bella Romero Elementary, chastised the commissioners for recently approving 24 wells near the east Greeley school.
“It is you who approved this project. It is you who put my child at risk,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “You have failed my child, you have failed his classmates, you have failed Colorado.”
