AURORA | The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission on Wednesday ratified a hotly contested oil and gas drilling and fracking plan, approving on a 3-1 vote about 150 wells across 32,000 acres in unincorporated Arapahoe County, east of Aurora.
“We are devastated by the commission’s decision to approve the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan,” said Marsha Goldsmith Kamin, president of Save The Aurora Reservoir. “This is without doubt the wrong decision for the health, safety, and environment of our community.”
Officials from Crestone Peak Resources, a subsidiary of Civitas gas and oil, have pressed for approval of the project for almost two years. Colorado law now provides for some local say in gas and oil extraction projects, and the state has raised environmental requirements for extraction.
STAR officials, and their petroleum and geology experts, have testified for months that there are known and unknown dangers to surface water, groundwater sources and the environment built into the Lowry Ranch project.
Specifically, STAR and some local and state officials balked at drilling under the nearby Denver Lowry Landfill, an EPA Superfund site.
Last year, Crestone modified its plan to accommodate the concerns, removing plans for drilling under the landfill.
Crestone officials, however, during commission hearings last week, pushed back against alleged threats from drilling laterally beneath the Aurora Reservoir, insisting that geological and environmental risks are few, and that company engineers have a solid plan for ensuring project safety.
STAR officials said the group would continue to seek ways to monitor and restrict the project.
“We will continue to monitor the project and will elevate community concerns throughout the life of this comprehensive area plan,” said STAR founder Kevin Chan.
Industry experts testifying last week on behalf of STAR argued that the Lowry Ranch plan presents “major risks to public health, safety, the environment, and wildlife resources that are inadequately mitigated by the so-called “industry standard” practices they have proposed.”
Colorado state officials have “decided to take the industry’s word that they will make a best effort to protect people, wildlife, and the environment,” Goldsmith Kamin said in a statement. “We are not quite so trusting and will be closely watching to see if their actions match their words.”
Sierra Club officials also criticized the state commission approval of the project.
“Members of this community deserve access to healthy air and clean water, and shouldn’t have to live in fear of fracked gas operations beneath their homes and schools,” said Ben Jealous, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.
Besides moving through a variety of Arapahoe County reviews, proponents and critics of the Lowry Ranch project have participated in hours of hearings over the past three weeks, culminating in Wednesday’s 3-1 approval.
The Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan submitted by Civitas would facilitate the development of as many as 156 wells across 10 new or expanded well sites.
“The Lowry Ranch CAP is evidence of Civitas’ intention to develop this area in the proper and most protective manner,” said an attorney for the company, Jamie Jost, at a July 31 hearing. Jost said Civitas “fully recognizes and accepts the obligations to the communities that accompany its license to operate.”
Wells will extend horizontally beneath about 50 square miles of land controlled by the Colorado State Land Board, and Civitas would extract oil and gas using the technique of hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, which uses high-pressure jets of water, sand and chemicals to break apart rocks containing fossil fuels deep underground.
In the case of the Lowry Ranch project, the rock to be fracked is located more than a mile below the surface.
The project has long generated pushback from nearby Aurora residents concerned about the process polluting reservoir water and interfering with efforts to contain the groundwater and soil tainted by toxic waste that was dumped decades ago at Lowry.
STAR has repeatedly accused the oil and gas producer of taking only superficial steps to protect the environment.
“Mostly what we ask you, the commissioners, to consider throughout this hearing is whether this CAP actually protects public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife,” said attorney Michael Foote, representing the group. “It clearly doesn’t.”
Jost and others described how Civitas has changed the proposed layout of its operations to respond to concerns about sites being close to the reservoir and other sensitive areas, and also how it has agreed not to drill beneath the Lowry Landfill.
Individuals involved in the project also spoke about efforts to mitigate noise and plans to monitor the area around the wells for pollutants and impacts on wildlife, and stressed that well pads were thousands of feet from homes and complied with legal guidelines.
Jost and Christel Koranda of the state land board also pointed out tin July that funds raised by the land board’s lease to Civitas would benefit schools, including those in Arapahoe County, with Jost calling the property a “prime location” for that reason.
Foote countered by saying the information supplied by Civitas pertaining to the environmental impacts of the project was not trustworthy and that it was impossible to verify some of the data, including data on the seismic activity that could result from fracking.
He also said the company was not specific enough when describing how it will test groundwater and manage truck traffic, and he urged the commission to reject or at least stay the plan.
“The commission’s mission is to protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife, and this cap application just doesn’t do that,” Foote said.
Resident pushback prompted U.S. Rep. Jason Crow to pen a July 15 letter to the Environmental Protection Agency in which he asked how the Civitas project might impact the containment of polluted water and soil beneath the Lowry Landfill and what a “scientifically-based” buffer zone around the site would look like.
The cleanup of the former landfill site has been facilitated in part by the agency’s “Superfund” program.
KC Becker — administrator of the EPA’s Region 8 — which includes Colorado, responded to Crow’s letter on Tuesday, writing that the agency wasn’t aware of comparable fracking proposals near Superfund sites and that it had pushed Civitas not to develop under the landfill.
However, Becker said the agency was “confident that contamination at the site is contained and that the remedy remains protective of human health and the environment.”
This is a load of CRAP. Another example of the interests in of the public being subordinated to the interests of the energy industry. I would support a STAR initiative to Sue these Bastards to stop the project
This is a load of garbage. Another example of the interests in of the public being subordinated to the interests of the energy industry. I would support a STAR initiative to sue Civitas to stop the project
Wake up! This is bad! Fracking yields terrible damage!
It’s a great idea to have our own fuel sources. The people that think all electric is the way to go are totally wrong. We need the best of both worlds. Let’s be smart…be energy independent. Do we really want to rely on other countries for our fuel sources?
The Reservoir’s dam is 35 years old. A visual inspection of it shows substantial degradation, as is natural with aging. It has several noticable fissures from settling and there is substantial erosion on the dam’s face with visable undermining of the structure due to wave action. One wonders whether fracking with its attendant micro earthquakes will accelerate the degradation of the dam even further? No immediate worries, of course.
Questions – Will Civitas be depositing into a remediation fund if unforeseen consequences arise, which they always seem to? and, Will the lands have recorded on their titles that fracking occured beneath so that when developed into subdivisions in 30 years and the kids growing up there all grow goiters and prehensil tails their parents will know who to sue, or perhaps they will be prevented from suing by having knowingly assumed the risk?
What ever became of Aurora building an additional reservoir out in that general area?
Sequence, of any damage control media narrative if this petroleum fracking chemicals escape into the reservoir has likely already had its t’s crossed and I’s dotted. The oil companies look at the plus and minus trade-off. EPA higher ups can only offer their best guess guidance “fracking proposals near Superfund sites and that it had pushed Civitas not to develop under the landfill.” Helpful, but absolutely no teeth.
This handpicked Energy Management Commission has six that sits on the panel. Three are lawyers, the three others come from various
backgrounds. None hold or declare solid engineering experience or PE degreed, none demonstrate any in the field fracking experience.
The state-maintained website https://ecmc.state.co.us/about.html#/about talks about “our mission”. The State website list one on the board as Karin McGowan. She’s listed on another page as picked and meets the basic qualification. But, not included with her resume on the first page with the other six others not exactly a glowing up to date website. Accuracy is always a nice touch, but maybe it’s not that important here.
This permit for future fracking has its basis arrived thru a series of non-exact science, a lot of graphs, plenty of theory, and most important, professional salesmanship (industrial strength lobby power).
Although you would think this committee would pepper the applicant with powerful well thought out questions over something this critical and the EPA’s feedback, it seems a little weak. None have hard experience of something this technical.
But, thank God, most importantly required in the permit we will have electric, climate friendly vehicles running around the drill site platforms.
Looks like a next step appeal to this permit is a lawsuit.
Remember the earthquakes Colorado had as a direct result of Rocky Flats dumping wastewater deep in ground in the ’60s?
Bentonite + dumping wastewater = earthquakes.
Earthquakes can cause irreparable damage to the Lowry Superfund containment.
This is what causes me the greatest concern about this project.
Google the earthquakes that have occurred in Texas as the direct result of fracking.
Sandy, your memory is pretty good. The deep well pumping however, was out at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal due north of old Stapelton. The wells we were told were extremely deep to bury hazardous waste. When the tremors started the pumping was identified as the source. Shell oil company the contractor was told to stop the pumping. The earth settled down. This reckless fracking’s has the same potential to shift things. Does it seem odd of the seven commissioners only four voted on something that carries this much jeopardy. That’s unsettling by itself. I had some oil field background in deep water injection in Texas years ago. There is a lot more pressure in the process forcing liquid than most think. It can go in a lot of directions, almost always it finds a little void down there and away it goes.
Drill Baby Drill is the Mantra of the MAGA. I wonder how many of the residents in the affected area support that philosophy. Oh, wait, not in my back yard. Drill in the Arctic, drill in the ocean, drill in the poor people’s back yard, not mine.
BTW, I oppose the drilling and fracking, but I hear a lot of pearl clutching.
Sandy, your memory is pretty good. The deep well pumping however, was out at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal due north of old Stapleton. These wells we were told were extremely deep to bury hazardous waste. When the tremors started the deep well pumping was identified as the source. Shell Oil the contractor was told to stop the pumping. The earth settled down. This reckless fracking’s has the same potential to shift things. It doesn’t seem to make sense and it’s odd of the seven commissioners only four voted on something that carries this much jeopardy. That’s unsettling by itself. I had some oil field background in deep water injection in Midland Texas years ago. There is a lot more pressure in the process forcing liquid than most think. It can go in a lot of directions, almost always, it finds a little void down there and away it goes.