Increasing consternation over proposed oil and gas drilling efforts in Denver’s northern suburbs has prompted Adams 12 Five Star Schools to defend its decision to approve mineral leases underneath a middle and high school to a pair of energy companies.
In a first-of-its-kind letter sent to about 7,000 families on Dec. 10, Superintendent Chris Gdowski acknowledged that the leases, approved by the school district’s board of education in April, have “raised concern for many residents within our community.”
But Gdowski said Adams 12’s hands were tied by state rules regarding drilling in Colorado, noting that the state “currently holds all legal authority regarding where and how oil/gas can be extracted in our state.”
The leases cover mineral deposits deep underneath Horizon High School and Century Middle School, which Land Energy Inc. and Synergy Resources Corp., respectively, want to access through directional drilling techniques.
Synergy would drill under Century while Land Energy would access oil and gas beneath Horizon from a drilling location near East 152nd Avenue and Monaco Street — about 2 miles from the high school.
Extraction would occur a mile or more beneath either school, and no drilling would happen on school grounds. Neither company has yet to apply for a permit to begin drilling.
While Adams 12 has minimal claims on the minerals at either site (1.8 percent at Century; 3 percent at Horizon), Gdowski said the district was obliged to lease those shares to the companies or face a possible “forced pooling” action.
Forced pooling who refuse to lease those rights to be included in an energy company’s drilling plan.
In his letter, Gdowski wrote that fighting the lease requests “poses negative financial impacts and liability risks to the district.”
According to the district, 500 mineral-rights owners are part of the oil and gas pool underneath Century. Brian Macke, a spokesman for Synergy, said the company has acquired leases from most of those owners.
“If there is a holdout, there’s a provision (in state law) to have that holdout pooled into that unit,” he said.
Macke said what’s not mentioned in the district’s letter is that Adams 12 received a bonus for its mineral rights and will receive ongoing royalties once operations begin. The district confirmed that it received a $20,299 bonus earlier this year.
Macke said any activity under the school would be “imperceptible” to students or staff in the building, be it noise, vibration or odor.
Gdowski said that in just the past year, an increasing number of residents within the district have questioned the safety of oil and gas activity to human and environmental health.
“This is an especially hot point in our community because we have a proposed drilling action in a fairly densely populated area of our community,” Gdowski said in an interview with The Denver Post.
Recent proposals to drill in Denver’s northern suburbs, which lie at the western edge of the mineral-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin, have caused a public outcry in the past few months.
The Wadley Farms proposed drilling site while Thornton’s City Council was .
State regulators should have on oil and gas activity within their jurisdictions. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission holds its next public meeting on the topic Jan. 25.
Richard Bluhm, a 71-year-old former Thornton High School teacher who opposed the lease arrangement between Adams 12 and the energy companies, said worries about drilling will persist as long as state supremacy over the issue is the law of the land.
“We are all in a bad place — state law trumps local law,” he said. “Period.”
John Aguilar: 303-954-1695, jaguilar@denverpost.com or @abuvthefold
