After an eight-month battle by residents around the Aurora Reservoir to get a proposed oil and gas drill site to move farther away from homes, industry regulators Tuesday approved the operator’s plan, saying it met all the state requirements.
The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission voted 3-2 to approve Crestone Peak Resources’ plan to drill 24 wells on the State Sunlight-Long drill pad.
The oil and gas site was opposed by area residents through a grassroots group — Save the Aurora Reservoir, or STAR — which hired an attorney and expert witnesses to appear before the ECMC.
The oil and gas development plan was the subject of seven hearings — some over several days. Commissioners said it was one the largest shows of community opposition in memory.
Jaime Jost, Crestone’s attorney, said the plan was the “most vetted” and “most analyzed” application ever to come before the commission.
On Tuesday, 1,000 people tuned into the hearing on Zoom, maxing out the ECMC’s capacity on the meeting service.
The majority of commissioners, however, said they were faced with applying the commission’s rules measuring oil and gas development against protection of public health, safety, environment and wildlife.
“It’s a balance,” Commission Chairperson Jeff Robbins said. “In the end, I find that the State Sunlight-Long location achieves the balance that we’re told to look for.”
STAR said it “could not be more disappointed with the ECMC’s decision.”
“Our committed volunteers have toiled for three years to protect the health of our air, water and community — it wasn’t just that the site is unpopular, though that should carry weight,” Randy Willard, a STAR spokesperson, said in a statement.
STAR had raised $100,000 for legal and expert fees and organized nearly 2,500 active members, Willard said.
In December, the commission postponed approval of the plan asking Crestone to evaluate and provide detailed information on alternative sites and to work with the STAR.
Crestone looked at 11 alternative sites, including three suggested by STAR, and concluded their original site was still the best. Some of the detail requested was also lacking, commissioners said.
“Some of the testimony today makes it difficult for me to believe there wasn’t some bias,” Commissioner Brett Ackerman said. “This has been tough for everyone involved and what has made it tough was significant public outcry.”
Michael Foote, STAR’s attorney, told the commission Crestone “did not seem sufficiently motivated to explore all feasible locations.”
”Crestone instead, spent most of its analysis talking about how it is reducing impacts of the current Sunlight-Long location” and that it was finding ways “to pick apart everyone else’s suggestions.”
Commissioner Trisha Oeth said based on the information in the record she did not believe Crestone had “met its burden to prove that the proposed location minimizes the potential impacts.”
Oeth and Commission John Messner voted against approval, seeking another stay so Crestone could provide additional information. Robbins, Ackerman and Commissioner Micheal Cross approved the plan.
Crestone did reduce the size of the project to 24 wells from 32, which will cut the drilling and fracking time by six months. The operator estimated drilling would start at the end of this year and be finished in 327 days.
The State Sunlight-Long pad is one of 10 drill sites in the Crestone Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan approved by the ECMC in August 2024. The plan covers 32,000 acres of state-owned land.
The plan had been to drill 166 wells, but on Tuesday Crestone officials said the total had been trimmed to 106 wells.
Crestone said it had also shifted the State Sunlight-Long well pad eastward adding another 100 feet to the buffer between wells and the closest home, now 3,100 feet away.
The state’s regulatory buffer is 2,000 feet and the commission has approved numerous wells around that line.
“If we say no here, then we might as well do away with the 2,000-foot setback and we ought to start over and just think about what is the appropriate setback,” Robbins said. “I’m just saying that the applicant is entitled to application of the rules on the books at the time of the application.”
Crestone had also committed to a series of so-called best management practices, including the use of electric drill rigs, no on-site storage tanks and the use of pipelines to cut truck traffic.
“From a best management practice perspective, (this is) the best thing that we’ve seen from any operator in any application in the state,” Cross said.
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