Boulder County Commissioners Work to Reform Oil and Gas Regulations as Advocates Move Forward with Lawsuit
“We’re not talking about bans,” said Boulder County Attorney Ben Pearlman. “We’re focused on rewriting our regulations and working with the state.”
After
Boulder District Court Judge Nancy Woodruff Salomone on Friday moved to re-open
the Longmont fracking ban case, on Monday morning Commissioners Elise Jones and
Matt Jones, as well as Senior Chief Planner Kim Sanchez and County Attorney Pearlman,
made some progress of their own as they met with John Messner of the Colorado
Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to discuss their goals for reform.
In
particular, the county’s representatives told Messner the regulatory body must
increase fines, better analyze alternative drilling sites, consider the
cumulative impacts of all 60,000 wells in Colorado, and, perhaps most
importantly, learn to say no — a word the seven-member oil and gas commission
has never told an applicant in its 68 year history — especially if the operator
does not have the bonding to cover the reclamation process.
“It
would be a lot easier to accept oil and gas development if the operations were
not constantly leaking, noisy and shaking people to death,” Commissioner Elsie
Jones said. “But the enforcement and response to violations have not been
adequate.”
According
to a county-funded 2017 study, 65% of the wells in Boulder County experienced
at least one leak between 2014 to 2016, 31% experienced leaks in multiple calendar
years, and 24% experienced four or more leaks — or more than one leak per year.
In
2018, according to the Center for Western Priorities 2018 Colorado Oil and Gas
Spills Tracker, there were 596 oil and gas-related spills that contributed to
the more than 16,000 barrels of energy development material — oil, condensate,
water used in fracking and other substances — leaked and spilled across the
state.
While
industry leaders note operations are reducing the number of spills and leaks,
Messner agreed with commissioners that regulations must be increased and went
as far as to say that frequent violators could be barred from operating in the
state as even a $750,000 fine could be viewed as the cost of doing business for
a drilling operation that could be bringing in $20 million in revenue.
Enacting
such of sweeping reforms, however, is going to take some time, he noted.
Colorado
Rising and Our Longmont say time is something residents of Boulder County can
no longer afford and they argue the only way to effectively mitigate the
environmental damage caused by oil and gas operations is to cease them entirely
— especially as the Environmental Protection Agency looks to downgrade the
Front Range as a “serious” violator of federal health standards after ozone
levels failed to meet air quality standards.
“Longmont’s
oil and gas-related pollution exceeded the levels seen in all of the 28 major
urban comparison areas,” said Dr. Detlev Helmig, a fellow and associate
research professor at the Institute of Alpine and Arctic Research at the
University of Colorado Boulder, who the city of Longmont hired to analyze
emissions from oil and gas operations near the city. “Our measurements have
shown concentrations of oil and gas-related pollutants in East Longmont were at
a minimum on average two to three times higher than in most other large U.S.
cities.”
While
Colorado Rising and Our Longmont made significant progress in their fight to
allow fracking bans when Judge Salomone on Friday moved to reopen the Longmont
fracking ban case, the court case could take years.
Originally
filed in 2013, soon after 60% of Longmont voters approved a fracking ban, the
case was appealed twice before the Colorado Supreme Court ultimately ruled in
2016 that the ban was in operational conflict with state law outlined in the
Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Act.
The
advocacy groups also runs the risk of solidifying the Colorado Oil and Gas
Associations claim that Senate Bill 181 was not intended to allow for bans on
oil and gas development.
Colorado
Rising’s executive director and attorney Joseph Salazar, however, believes the
court will agree with him on the fact that the courts are not supposed to
interpret a statute to mean that which it does not explicitly express —
especially after Judge Salomone moved to reopen its case without hearing any of
the plaintiff’s objections
“It
signifies that the court wants to look into this a lot further,” he said. “This
is an important first step in the long fight to protect Longmont residents and
the environment from the harm associated with fracking activities.”
To
that end, Salazar said Colorado Rising will be issuing another motion
requesting the courts lift the injunction on municipal fracking bans, which
Scott Prestidge, a spokesman for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the
association will respond to by Sept. 3.
A date for the trial as not been set yet.