Fight over fracking near Aurora Reservoir erupts
Shortly after moving into her new home near the Aurora Reservoir, Marsha Goldsmith Kamin took a walk with her husband around the neighborhood and saw a sign that said, “Save Civitas, an oil and gas company, has proposed a proposal to operate 166 wells near the Aurora Reservoir and several communities. The proposal has faced strong opposition from Marsha Goldsmith Kamin and nearby residents, who argue that the project poses environmental and health problems. The controversy comes as Colorado is trying to transition away from fossil energy, with proponents arguing that it benefits the environment, creates a healthier environment for people and saves money over the long-term. Critics argue that a diverse energy portfolio that incorporates fossil-fired and renewable energy is more reliable and sustainable. The company has assured the Environmental Protection Agency that it will limit its wells to avoid a Superfund site. The project would generate an estimated $235 million in tax revenue for Arapahoe County.
ที่ตีพิมพ์ : 11 เดือนที่แล้ว โดย Kyla Pearce [email protected] ใน Environment
Shortly after moving into her new home near the Aurora Reservoir, Marsha Goldsmith Kamin took a walk with her husband around the neighborhood and saw a sign that said, “Save the Aurora Reservoir.”
“I looked at my husband and I looked out at the reservoir and I said, 'What's the matter with it? What are we saving?'" Kamin said.
Civitas, an oil and gas company, has submitted a proposal to operate 166 wells near the reservoir and several communities. After clearing the technical requirements to move forward, the company is now encountering stiff opposition from Kamin and nearby residents.
The controversy erupted even as policymakers are aggressively seeking to transition the state away from fossil energy. Indeed, while Colorado is one of the country's top energy producers — in 2022, the state ranked No. 5 in crude oil production and No. 8 in natural gas — there has been a persistent effort to limit the industry's footprint, a campaign that has intensified in the last several years.
Proponents of the transition argue it benefits the environment, creates a healthier environment for people and saves Coloradans money, anticipating that, over the long term, renewable energy would be more economical to produce. Critics, meanwhile, say the transition is happening too quickly, that it would be financially costly to people and businesses alike and that a diverse energy portfolio that incudes fossil-fired and renewable energy is more reliable and sustainable.
Against this backdrop, several Aurora residents said they are primarily worried about the proposed wells' proximity to homes and argued the project poses environmental and health problems.
Civitas countered that the project offers unequivocal benefits to the surrounding areas and to the county. Company officials also promised to adopt a wide array of precautions, including building wells farther away from homes and adding air monitoring and sound barriers to protect residents and ensure the project does not negatively affect the area.
In addition to meeting the requirements to finally get a hearing from the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the company has assured the Environmental Protection Agency that it would limit its wells to stay clear of a Superfund site.
Civitas added the project would yield an estimated $235 million in tax revenue for Arapahoe County.
Oil and gas activities at the Lowry Ranch, the proposed site, can be tracked back to the 1920s, decades after the first oil well broke ground in the state shortly after the middle of the 19th century.
The Lowry Ranch area used to be a Department of Defense military installation from 1938 to 1964 before its transfer to the Colorado State Land Board.
Civitas — a Colorado-based oil and gas company whose fields can be found across northern and central Colorado, as well as in New Mexico and Texas — holds an oil and gas lease on the majority of the land. It has site-specific stewardship stipulations, which the company said has generated $209 million for public schools.
Seeking to develop the area, Civitas two years ago filed the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan, which includes 32,000 acres of proposed subsurface mineral development. The company proposed eight locations with a total of 166 new wells and 14 existing horizontal wells. The development includes drilling about 7,000 feet under the Aurora Reservoir.
After several revisions sought by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the state body determined last February that the application is now complete and scheduled for a hearing in July.
Arapahoe County requires oil and gas operations to be located 1 mile away from existing and planned reservoirs unless downgradient conditions can be demonstrated and for a "setback" of 3,000 feet from residences.
A special permission allows for operations to be closer to residences — but no closer than 1,000 feet away, according to those requirements.
Under the proposed development, the closest residence to the drilling sites would be 1,955 feet away; the second closest at 2,705 feet away. The owner and residents of those homes have signed what's called Informed Consent Letters, which explicitly state their agreement to the well locations, according to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission.
In a letter to Civitas, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment raised concerns about two locations due to their proximity to residents. And, given that there is a school within 4,801 feet of the Beaver pad, the state agency recommended that the company plan its activities around school year schedules.
The health agency is not objecting to the proposal.
The Environmental Protection Agency is also not objecting to the proposal, though it raised worries regarding the site's proximity to the Lowry Landfill, which is owned by the City and County of Denver and operated by Waste Management of Colorado.
From 1965 to 1980, an estimated 138 million gallons of liquid industrial waste was disposed of in about 78 unlined pits over about 200 acres near Gun Club Road in Arapahoe County.
In the 1980s, the EPA found contamination from the site in groundwater, surface water, soil and sediments and put a remedial plan into place. It included adding underground barrier walls, constructing a water treatment plant to treat groundwater, and taking other measures to make sure the contaminants no longer affected health and safety.
Last May, the EPA told Colorado's Energy and Carbon Management Commission it is "concerned that minerals exploration, including fracking, could create releases of the hazardous waste from the landfill mass.”
The federal agency has discussed the matter with Civitas, and the company said it would limit the State Sneffels wells to avoid the site.
In its final letter to the commission, the EPA requested that the state create a buffer zone for all drilling and fracking around the Superfund site boundary, including horizontal fracking lines barred from going under any portion of the full site boundary.
Like Colorado's health agency, the EPA is not objecting to the Civitas proposal.
As Civitas prepares for the July hearing before the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, nearby residents organized in a campaign to kill the project.
Save the Aurora Reservoir, the group spearheading the opposition, has successfully pushed the state agency to hold a public hearing in May, in which several hundred showed up to speak out against the proposal. Nobody at the hearing voiced approval.
In addition to health worries, several people who testified at the May hearing made several claims, notably the project's effect on the "climate crisis"; the risk of water contamination; the threat to local wildlife; the health of nearby residents; and worries about public safety, including what might happen during natural disasters and what they described as the increased risk of earthquakes and fires as a result of hydraulic fracturing.
Hashim Coates, a candidate for Arapahoe County Board of Commissioners, asked the state body to reject the proposal, suggesting it would ruin the grassland area where Civitas wants to drill. The creek and wetland ecosystems in the area serve as habitats for a variety of wildlife species, Coates said.
"You have an opportunity to take a stand for the future generations over the desires of those seeking to increase profits," he told the commission.
Several residents also said they are worried about natural disasters and the increased risk of earthquakes and fires that, they said, could result from hydraulic fracturing.
Out in the plains where the site sits, the community is no stranger to high winds, which makes them extra vulnerable to fire risk, added Kamin, who is now the president of Save the Aurora Reservoir. Kamin tied her opposition to the 2021 Marshall Fire, which destroyed more than 1,000 homes and businesses in Boulder County.
“If there’s one leak, one explosion, one flare and something catches ... there’s just so much at risk with that,” she said.
The critics also raised worries about seismic activity in connection with hydraulic fracturing. Kamin, in particular, said she fears rupturing the Superfund site in the area.
“If the Superfund is ruptured due to fracking or other seismic activity, it’s going to risk introducing millions of gallons of toxic waste into our groundwater,” she said.
Lisa McKenzie, a professor at CU Anschutz who studies associations between health and proximity to oil and gas development, said her studies have tied fracking to adverse health outcomes but that the effect is largely based on distance.
Citing her studies, McKenzie said the risk starts to fall off at about one kilometer or about 3,280 feet from the well pad sites.
“All this being said, a study has not been conducted to really systematically look at the distance from a well pad where the risk becomes minimal,” McKenzie said.
Meanwhile, Shemin Ge, a hydrogeologist at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied wastewater injection-induced seismicity, said whether or not seismic activity occurs due to hydraulic fracturing largely has to do with how quickly it happens.
The process of hydraulic fracturing includes injecting a lot of water into a deep rock formation. When those formations have faults or water injected into them creates extra pressure, that can make rock break, Ge said.
The faster the fracking happens, the more likely seismic activity will occur, she said.
“It’s always safer to study in advance about the rocks, how strong or how competent, or how broken the rocks are,” Ge said. “When you inject water into it, then you know and can kind of predict or estimate what’s going to happen.”
Some reject the hypothesis that fracking leads to "earthquakes," as the public intuitively interprets that word.
In a KUNC report from 2014 following an earthquake in Greeley, U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Justin Rubenstein said, "The process of hydraulic fracturing does not cause earthquakes, at least the kind people feel."
In a letter to Civitas from the city of Aurora, officials said they are not concerned about seismic risk to the Aurora Reservoir or dam. Seismic studies have not showed any large faulting in the area or any evidence of a fault that could be re-activated through hydraulic fracturing, they said.
Rich Coolidge, a Civitas spokesperson, also there has not been any "reportable seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracturing in Colorado."
The company said it has conducted extensive work on the project, including hosting meetings with the State Land Board, Arapahoe County, the city of Aurora, Aurora Water, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, Bureau of Land Management, local emergency response agencies, Colorado Parks and Wildlife and mineral and lease owners.
The company promised to implement best practices and added that a coordinated infrastructure development will "dramatically aid in avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating impacts from our operations.”
Since first submitting its proposal, the company also noted major changes it has adopted, such as shifting three sites east to increase setbacks from neighborhoods and the reservoir, removing two sites in response to feedback from leaseholders in the units, removing two sections already developed by another operator, changing well counts, and updating wildlife impact maps to reflect late 2022 survey results and site visits with state wildlife staffers.
Civitas follows Colorado’s regulations, which are some of the strictest in the world when it comes to governing oil and natural gas development, according to Coolidge, adding the company is an "early adopter of new technologies and innovative practices."
“We’re always exploring opportunities to recycle and reuse produced water and remain committed to finding solutions that will work for the unique challenges in our state’s geology," he wrote in his email to the Denver Gazette.
Dan Haley, the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, blamed "activists" for the controversy, saying it is not "unusual for activist groups to stir up communities when it comes to oil and gas development," even though it has "been done safely and responsibly in this state for decades."
"Our operators also have invested millions to bring the latest, and cleanest, technology into Colorado and they often go above and beyond regulatory requirements to operate safely and responsibly," Haley wrote in a statement. "The result has been cleaner and safer oil and gas production."
หัวข้อ: Governance-ESG, Environment-ESG