Encana’s Pratt site in December – Daily Camera
The town of Erie, a suburban community about 30 miles north of Denver, is poised to enact an oil drilling moratorium –or maybe it isn’t.
Erie’s Board of Trustees, their version of a town council, was within asingle vote of putting a one-year halt to all drilling in the community 21,500 Tuesday night, when a compromise resolution passed, 4-3, allowing two more weeks negotiations with Encana Corp. the Calgary-based oil and gas company operating in town.
At stake in Erie is an effort by a community to get a little more control on the siting and impacts of drilling adjacent to homes – a power exclusively vested with state regulators.
The marathon meeting – filled with a lot of frustration on the part of town trustees and residents – was the latest mile-marker in a story that began last August when Encana filed plans to drill 13 wells on two pads between two affluent subdivisions, with the closest homes about 760 feet away.
Residents of the two developments – Vista Ridge and Vista Point — .
At the time the trustees said they had little say or leverage in the siting of the well pads – which in theory could have been set farther back on the 40-acre parcel.
The placement of wells is something set between the landowner and the driller, with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission approving the location plan.
The Erie trustees said that based on the limited criteria in the town’s ordinances they had no choice but to issue a local use permit. “We have very limited if not completely limited ability … to affect change,” trustee Scott Charles said at the time.
“I know that the residents of Vista Ridge and Vista Point don’t get what they want,” said Waylon Schutt, another trustee. “Our hands are tied.”
But a resolution also was passed at the meeting directing the town’s staff to go back to renegotiate the memorandums2 of understanding the town had negotiated in 2012 with Enacana and Anadarko Petroleum Corp., the other major operator in town.
Erie was the – setting some best operating practices for drilling in town. It is an approach that has been followed by other municipalities and counties in the state.
But it did not include issues on well pad location.
“The oil and gas companies have to give up a little to the people who live there,” Mayor Pro Temp Mark Gruber said.
Meanwhile Encana set about preparing to drill the first seven-well pad near Vista Ridge, the Pratt site. The 30-foot sound walls went up and the drilling began the day before Thanksgiving with the 142-foot rig towering over the scene.
Within hours a low and constant hum filled the neighborhood, with in a day vibrations were making plates dance on tables and rattling picture on walls.
and peppered the state oil and gas commission, state health department and local officials with complaints. Just before Christmas, until the problems could be resolved.
“I was extremely frustrated as mayor,” said Tina Harris. “I was receiving these complaints, hearing these stories and there nothing I could do.”
Harris and other trustees spent their time calling the governor’s office, the state oil and gas commission, and Encana.
For 27 days the resident lived with “hell in their homes,” Vista Ridge resident Kyle Roth, told the Erie trustees Tuesday night.
It was against this backdrop that the revised memorandum of understanding with Encana was given to the trustees on Friday January 9th.
As far as many of the trustees were concerned the key points were lacking and what was in the proposed agreement was a commitment by the town that if it signed there would be no moratorium or municipal rules that would block drilling for ten years.
“For me the lack of a 1,000-foot setback was a deal breaker,” said Mayor Pro Tem Mark Gruber. A ten-year term was also too long, Gruber said.
Among the other elements the board was seeking to include in the agreement were:
• 100 percent recovery of fugitive emissions from all sites
• No drilling during the summer
• The town being involved in the planning for future well sites
• Enhanced air quality testing and reporting
• Notification to the town before filing drilling permit applications are filedwith the state.
• Use of electric drilling rigs
So the board scrapped with memorandum and in its place and proposed a year moratorium, to provide time to renegotiate anew, see what recommendations for giving local government more control of drilling a governor’s task force proposes and time to revise the town’s own drilling ordinance.
“We’d be doing a disservice to citizens not to enact a moratorium,” trustee Scott said.
But trustee Schutt warned “a moratorium is going to bite us in the ass.”
Jason Oates, Encana’s manager for regulatory affairs and public relations, told the board his company “supports continued dialogue and good faith negotiations.”
Oates pointed out that in the proposed memorandum the most of planned wells were 1,000 feet or more from homes. But not for the Pratt site or from another one where the rigs would be even closer – 600 feet – from homes.
It came to light at the meeting, however, that once moratorium had been placed the board’s agenda Encana immediately filed three more drilling permits with the state. It was all about protecting interests, Oates explained. “You have to protect yours, we have to protect ours,” he said.
In the end, the board agreed to delay moving on the moratorium to provide two more weeks of talks with Encana.
“This town and its residents need a demonstration of good intent from Encana, you owe it to us after the Pratt site,” said Mayor Harris.
