Fights over oil and gas development along the Front Range are nothing new, with neighbors and towns often locking horns with energy extraction firms.
But one of the newest standoffs coming to a head is between local governments over the where and how of drilling operations, a type of clash that at least one official says will happen elsewhere without more state guidance.
On Tuesday night, a simmering cross-border conflict between Adams County and city of Broomfield is expected to come to a head when elected leaders in Broomfield choose whether to sign off on an operating agreement with Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. over a plan to drill 49 wells close to a few hundred Adams County homes.
“You should be a good neighbor,” said Barb Binder, a 20-year resident of an Adams County neighborhood near the proposed drilling sites. “This is a classic example of ‘Let’s shove this as far away from our residents as possible and on to others.’ ”
The issue has become so contentious that Adams County officials are now publicly urging Broomfield to delay a vote on the deal — known as a memorandum of understanding — with Extraction so that new well pads can be identified.
Adams County wants the wells to be moved north of the Northwest Parkway. That’s where county commissioners, in a letter sent to Broomfield officials last week, claimed there is “abundant land … that is undeveloped and more suitable for oil and gas development” than nearby neighborhoods that have been around as long as half a century.
In that scenario, the wells would also be far from any Broomfield neighborhoods, Adams County Commissioner Eva Henry told The Denver Post.
“It’s not anti-drilling, what we’re asking,” she said. “We just want them to move them away from homes.”
The high-stakes battle at the intersection of the Northwest Parkway and Interstate 25, where Adams and Broomfield counties share a border, in many ways mirrors the objections to oil and gas development that have surfaced near neighborhoods across Denver’s northern suburbs over the past few years, as a rapidly growing population encroaches on highly sought-after underground mineral deposits in the giant, gas-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin.
Without more direction from the state that allows mineral owners to exercise their rights while protecting homeowners’ health and safety, Henry said, “it’s only going to get worse.”
“We are a rural, residential area and never expected to have huge-scale industrial operations next to us,” said Binder, who lives in North Star Estates in unincorporated Adams County. “There are just better locations for these facilities.”
As it stands, Extraction’s plan calls for wells to be as close as 1,000 feet from Binder’s home and those of her neighbors in North Star Estates and Mustang Acres — Adams County neighborhoods that sit at the southwest corner of I-25 and Northwest Parkway. The company wants to drill in an adjoining open space in Broomfield where 49 wells — part of a broader, 84-well project — are slated to go.
Binder said she has heard from real estate brokers who say properties in the neighborhood will plummet if the wells go in. She also worries about possible negative health effects from drilling activity and incessant lines of trucks servicing the well pads.
Extraction spokesman Brian Cain said the company has settled on well locations that have been “heavily scrutinized” for their technical feasibility and potential impacts to those living in the area — a process that has taken the better of two years.
Cain said the final proposal was arrived at in full collaboration with Broomfield’s citizen-led oil and gas task force, which was formed in February. And it’s a far less intensive plan than had been proposed by a previous energy firm a few years ago, which wanted to drill 140 wells across 12 sites in Broomfield, he said.
“We are trying to do our best to develop the resource in the safest way with minimum inconvenience to neighbors,” he said. “We can’t just throw darts at a map to pick drilling sites.”
Cain said the sites near the Adams County homes were chosen for a variety of reasons, including the technical ability to access the mineral deposits, land ownership considerations and abiding by the task force’s recommendations.
He said the company is keeping the wells more than 1,000 feet from the nearest homes — twice as far as what state statutes require — and removing dozens of old vertical wells already in Adams County neighborhoods.
But those concessions don’t mollify Adams County officials, who say they were blindsided by Extraction’s latest plan. They said they only learned last month that the well pads had been moved south from sites north of the parkway to the county line.
“For 18 months to 2 years, (the northern sites) were acceptable locations,” said Kristin Sullivan, Adams County’s director of community and economic development.
Broomfield Deputy City Manager Kevin Standbridge said Broomfield finds itself in a tough spot because ultimately Extraction has the right under state law to develop its resources according to rules far less stringent than what the city and county have hammered out with the company.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission will have final say over the permitting of Extraction’s proposed wells.
Standbridge said Broomfield asked Extraction to move the wells away from the Adams County line but that the company said it couldn’t.
“We understand the concerns (of Adams County residents), but we don’t think we can put something better on the table,” he said. “This is the proposal the city council is going to consider.”
