Now Colorado regulators want to address — the structures often called smokestacks by the general public — after a recently published report found that the flames are the state’s most significant source of volatile organic compounds.

Those harmful chemicals contribute to ground-level ozone pollution, an ongoing problem along the Front Range that has pushed the region into violation of federal air quality standards. The compounds can also be hazardous to human health if breathed for extended periods or in highly concentrated levels.

“We’re looking at programs that would necessitate periodic reviews of how the facility’s operating their flares, in terms of what����ap being sent to them and what technologies are they using to minimize emissions from flaring, and then taking steps to implement process improvements,” said Jessica Ferko, the policy and planning director for .

Not only is the Suncor refinery Colorado’s largest polluter of volatile organic compounds the report released in April shows the Commerce City facility is in the state’s top 10 for releasing sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrous oxides. Those are all hazardous gases that contribute to global warming and are also harmful to humans who regularly breathe them or are exposed to intense levels within a short period of time, the report found.

The facility also fell within the top 50% of emissions nationally for a refinery of its size and age, according to , a North Carolina consulting firm that produced the report. The first refinery on that site was built in the 1930s.

“Broadly speaking, we see Suncor as a large source of pollution,” Ferko said.

The refinery report will become the foundation for an upcoming process to create new state rules directly aimed at Suncor and its ongoing pollution problems. The air pollution division is hosting a series of public meetings this month to and to listen to public concerns about the refinery. The will be held Saturday and Tuesday.

Colorado law sets up a formal but lengthy process for creating new air quality rules, and it could be nine months or longer before the acts. It would be even longer before any new regulations went into effect.

But the state’s regulators said they have heard from the public and understand there is demand to do more to bring Suncor into compliance. The report, which cost $190,506 to produce, was mandated by the Colorado General Assembly.

Suncor has not been involved in writing the report or developing new regulations. The company would have the opportunity to argue over proposed new rules once the Air Quality Control Commission starts considering new policies.

In an email to The Denver Post, a Suncor spokeswoman said the company has made significant investments in its Commerce City refinery to improve reliability, refining operations and environmental impact. She did not address the report’s findings or the upcoming plans for new regulations.

“We remain committed to continuous improvement, regulatory compliance and working with regulators and stakeholders to responsibly support Colorado consumers and Colorado’s energy needs,” Tara Weber of Suncor wrote in the email. “As Colorado’s only refining operations, our ability to remain competitive with out-of-state suppliers is essential to supporting local jobs, continuing investment in the facility and providing the fuels Coloradans rely on every day.”

In 2025, Suncor said it was prepared to spend $57 million to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at its Commerce City refinery.

Suncor, based in Calgary, Canada, operates , processing 103,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The refinery, located on the banks of Sand Creek, makes gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and asphalt, and it sells 95% of its products in Colorado.

The refinery is allowed to send pollutants into the air under its . But that permit limits how much of each particular pollutant can be released. Violations must be reported to the state.

Colorado has three active investigations into Suncor’s pollution violations, dating to July 2, 2024. However, no investigation has yet to be launched over possible 2026 violations, including the July 28 incident when giant flames shot from a smokestack, or a May 11 incident when black and yellow plumes billowed from the refinery.

In the July incident, Suncor reported that it had exceeded its limits for smoke, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulfide from 9:42 a.m. July 27 through 12:59 p.m. July 28, according to its notification to the state health department. The malfunction��occurred at its Plant 1 main flare and�� equipment that cooks crude oil at high temperatures and breaks it down into a usable substance.

Flares and cracking units are two pieces of equipment at the refinery that often malfunction and cause Suncor to violate its federal air permit standards, the refinery report found.

The air pollution division’s staff is looking into those incidents as part of its annual inspection, which is not finished, said Kate Malloy, a state health department spokeswoman. If any alleged violations are found, the department would issue a compliance advisory, which is an official notice of an investigation.

In a recent public meeting, multiple people complained that Suncor’s notifications about this summer’s flaring incidents came late and did not provide much information about what had caused the excessive smoke and whether they needed to take precautions.

Michael Ogletree, the state health department’s senior director of state air quality programs, said the division wants to address Suncor’s public notification system so the community is more informed when malfunctions happen at the refinery.

“We have heard a lot from the community about how we can increase transparency from the refinery,” Ogletree said.

The refinery report identified four pieces of equipment, including the flares, that cause the most pollution, and it offered ideas for new technology and best management practices used by other refineries to reduce pollution.

Excessive pollution is often released when refinery workers need to shut down and then restart operations, which often happens after a malfunction. Between 2022 and 2024, 175 of those events were reported, Ferko said during a Wednesday public meeting.

The state health department will likely propose a regulation that would require Suncor to hire an outside consultant to analyze repeated malfunctions within a certain time frame, or when they happen because the same piece of equipment fails, Ferko said.

The division’s regulators want the new rules to give enforcement staff more power to bring Suncor into compliance, Stefanie Shoup, deputy director of regulatory affairs for the Air Pollution Control Division, said the Wednesday meeting. They can only do so much under existing state and federal regulations.

“It gives them more weight,” Shoup said. “It gives them something they can grip into when they are pursuing enforcement.”

Attorneys representing the company informed the town of its decision earlier in the day, according to the Erie news release.

Erie Mayor Andrew Moore on Wednesday evening said SM Energy’s decision to walk away from the table left him “bummed.”

Moore has been a vocal proponent of the contentious mineral rights deal, which would have included $4.5 million in cash and 160 acres of land from SM Energy, as well as assurances from the company that it would plug and abandon 17 existing oil and gas wells within Erie over time.

“We’ve spent a year working through this. … Those were two huge benefits to the town,” he told the Daily Camera.

The Erie Town Council had narrowly voted in June to sell the town’s mineral rights, an agreement that would have allowed SM Energy to drill beneath portions of Erie from its planned Draco Pad just east of the town.

The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission had approved a plan for the Draco Pad in March 2025, but before SM Energy could start drilling, the company needed to establish legal access to all the underground minerals included in the plan. Without the mineral rights deal, under , SM Energy will now have to redraw its drilling plan to avoid Erie-owned mineral rights — which amount to 2.7% of the total Draco drilling area.

The end of the agreement follows a months-long back-and-forth over the deal.

In June, the mineral rights agreement��put before the council failed, with council members split on the issue. One week later, the council to sell the town’s mineral rights to SM Energy. A month later, Erie residents who opposed the deal to put the issue up to voters, either on the November ballot or through a special election.

Moore said the referendum “certainly was the driver” behind SM Energy’s decision to pull out of the deal.

SM Energy can continue forward with drilling Draco, even without access to the town’s mineral rights.

Many residents who opposed the SM Energy deal said that they did so out of concerns about how drilling might impact the community’s health and safety. Others in the Erie community took issue with how the mineral rights deal came about, including more than one discussion held in executive session.

Erie resident Steve Drew is part of that second group. He said he isn’t necessarily against the mineral rights agreement itself, but rather the process that brought it about. Drew said that SM Energy ditching the deal is “not a win” in his book.

“The reason the referendum was put together was to bring it to a vote so that Erie residents could demonstrate what they would like done with Erie’s mineral rights. The referendum was a vote against the process that was put together, the lack of transparency,” Drew said.

Erie will retain ownership of its mineral rights for the time being. The town is still evaluating the implications of the end of the agreement, according to the Wednesday release.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

But on July 3 of last year, five federal departments filed rules in the Federal Register that gutted their own environmental review regulations. Agriculture. Interior. Energy. Transportation. Defense filed twice. All six took effect the day they were published, with public comment invited afterward, if at all.

It wasn’t a secret. An executive order signed the previous January had given every federal agency 12 months to revise its environmental procedures, and July 3 was the deadline. The rules shrinking public comment didn’t themselves go out for public comment.

Why would a government work this hard to stop hearing from people?

In April 2024, at a dinner at Mar-a-Lago, an oil executive complained that his industry had spent $400 million lobbying the previous administration and rules still hadn’t been changed. Trump’s answer to the 20 or so executives in the room was that they raise him a billion dollars. He was specific about the return — more oil and gas leases auctioned on federal land. He called it a deal.

The Washington Post and The New York Times reported the “deal” within a month, and two congressional committees opened inquiries, but nobody in the administration disputed it.

Trump’s Forest Service chief came from a vice presidency at one of the largest lumber producers in the country.

Interior’s third-ranking official holds grazing permits on a quarter-million acres managed by the BLM and got an ethics waiver this March to work on ranching and grazing issues. The agency’s grazing overhaul covers 155 million acres while narrowing who’s allowed to object.

The BLM’s director made his fortune in oil and gas. The BLM gave the public seven days to weigh in on stripping protection from the country around Chaco Canyon National Historical Park, which the Park Service describes as a “sacred and deeply personal place for many Indigenous peoples.”��Comments were accepted online only and public participation cut from 90 days to 10.

The Forest Service wants to slash comment on a timber project from 30 days to 10, delete the meeting where objections used to get worked out in a room, and hand review of your objection to the official who made the decision to which you’re objecting.

The 2001 Roadless Rule protected 58 million acres of national forest land from development and took 430 public meetings and 1.6 million comments to write. The Agriculture Department recently erased the rule with 21 days of public comment and not a single public meeting.

I’ve heard talk about whether it’s time for a march on Washington. Meanwhile, here’s what works.

Last summer, a proposed bill in Congress would have forced the sale of 3.3 million acres and put 250 million more acres on the table, but hunters and anglers and hikers and Westerners who would sooner eat their hat than call themselves environmentalists made so much noise that Republican senators went after it in public.

Backcountry Hunters and Anglers alone logged nearly 115,000 calls and emails. The bill died. Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee says he’ll be back for it — and I believe him — but it died.

Comments still matter even when they lose, because they go into the administrative record, and the record is what a federal judge reads two years later. When the Agriculture Department collected 46,845 comments on dismantling the Forest Service, it found 82% opposed yet answered none of the objections. That silence became a claim in a lawsuit this January.

Every comment filed, and every phone call, puts one more name on a list of people paying attention, and that list is the only thing that has ever stopped this internal destruction. It isn’t foolproof. Erasing the Roadless Rule drew 625,737 comments, and the rescission is proceeding anyway. What the public land sell-off had that the Roadless Rule didn’t was a vote that a member of Congress had to cast with their name on it.

The pendulum swings, as it always has, and when it turns, how much of the damage gets undone might come down to how many of us showed up on the day it happened.

Will Pattiz is a contributor to Writers on the Range, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West. He is co-founder of More Than Just Parks, a public lands advocacy and media organization.

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The board will decide whether the proposed Buc-ee’s qualifies as a “convenience store” allowed in the C-1 zoning district under the Land Development Code.

The hearing does not approve or deny construction of a Buc-ee’s, the county said Monday afternoon on its . It only resolves the land-use classification question. Any future development would still require additional county reviews and approvals, as applicable.

The Board of County Commissioners’ is scheduled for 9 a.m., according to the county’s website.

The appeal follows a July decision by Meggan Herington, the county’s executive director of planning and community development, who said it was “difficult to classify the proposed use” of the Buc-ee’s development.

“El Paso County is committed to providing a public hearing process that is transparent, respectful, and fair. Public input is part of the Board of County Commissioners’ hearing process, and residents may participate by submitting written comments, attending the hearing, or speaking during the public comment portion of the hearing,” county officials said on the project website.

The proposal has divided residents across the Tri-Lakes area for nearly two years over water usage, open space and traffic. A ruling in Buc-ee’s favor could move the project one step closer to development as the company’s second Colorado travel center.

This is a developing story and may be updated. ��

It’s complex and multilayered, with a 48-page minerals access agreement at its heart that has stirred questions and suspicion among residents of fast-growing Erie, which straddles Boulder and Weld counties.

The quarrel related to what is known as the Draco oil and gas pad, which has received clearance from the state to move forward, is now likely headed to a special election — a vote that will test the tolerance of Erie residents for the latest fracking project in a town that sits at the edge of the energy-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin.

Opponents are crying foul over a controversial deal Erie’s elected leaders approved in June — on the second try — to sell town-owned underground minerals to SM Energy for up to $35 million over the next two decades. The agreement calls for the company to give the town 160 acres of land as well. SM also would plug and abandon old wells in exchange for access to the subterranean riches.

Many in this town of 42,000 question whether there was enough openness in the way town leaders crafted the minerals agreement with SM Energy��— and why a consultant who once worked for a company that recently merged with it��was hired to help Erie close the deal.

In a larger sense, the community pushback in Erie is the latest flashpoint in a long history of standoffs between residents, industry representatives and state regulators. Those disputes have centered on the question of how the state’s communities can co-exist with an industry that employs thousands of Coloradans and injects billions of dollars into the economy — including —��while also posing threats to human health and the natural environment.

Fights over proposed drilling operations are gearing up, or already underway, in other burgeoning areas of the Front Range, including southeast Aurora, Adams County and Windsor.

The Draco pad would be located just east of the Erie town line in unincorporated Weld County. SM Energy’s lateral wells, drilled 7,000 feet deep, would extend westward .

For Amy Becker, an 11-year Erie resident, people’s health and peace of mind outweigh any financial benefits the town might accrue from doing business with an oil and gas operator.

“To me, it’s not about the money,” she said, “it’s about doing the right thing.”

The right thing, she says, would be to resist SM Energy’s plans and make it as hard as possible for the company to do business at the edge of the bedroom community, where new suburban houses are sprouting from the ground just a mile from the proposed well pad site. The site is at the northwest corner of Weld County roads 6 and 7.

“Do we want to make it easier for them or do we want to make it harder for them?” Becker said. “We have been fracked enough — we want to be done with this.”

Becker has been helping collect signatures for a petition to send a measure to a special election ballot, asking voters if they want to keep the agreement Erie made with SM Energy, a $7 billion oil and gas firm based in Denver — or scuttle it.

Last week, Erie’s clerk determined the petitioners had to go to the voters. Assuming it isn’t successfully challenged over the next month or so, the measure will appear on a ballot in the fall.

An election date has not yet been set, though a town spokeswoman last week said Erie would do all it can to include the measure on the Nov. 3 general election ballot. If the timeline doesn’t allow that, it will likely appear on a special election ballot a few weeks later.

“With a decision like this, where the repercussions last decades, if not longer — and it affects everyone in Erie — you really need the backing of the people,” said Emily Brecht, a recent Erie resident who is spearheading the ballot effort. “Many people did not feel heard when the Town Council made the decision ultimately to make a deal with SM Energy.”

Erie Mayor Andrew Moore, who voted in favor of the minerals deal, said there are “activists against the oil and gas industry in and around Erie, (who were) either trying to stop Draco before or (are) just being against oil and gas in general.”

“And there’s emotional commitment to that,” Moore added.

But killing the deal with SM Energy would be tantamount to Erie shooting itself in the foot, he said. The , the regulatory body that decides on drilling and fracking applications statewide, .

That means the project can move forward regardless. Absent a deal with SM, Erie will forfeit millions of dollars that the town could use to fund infrastructure projects and other town services.

“So when we get to the point of, ‘Hey, the state approved this’ — I can’t change that,” Moore said. “But I think we need to work to get as much as we possibly can for Erie.”

SM Energy spokeswoman Maureen O’Shay declined to comment for this story.

Pursuing minerals deal, despite project concerns

The battle over the Draco pad has been swirling for years. Before the ECMC greenlighted the project in March 2025 — after — Erie residents .

The town itself of the ECMC’s decision hours after it was made.

But with the approval behind it, SM Energy’s��next step was to establish access to the oil and gas that lies largely beneath hundreds of Erie homes.

The eventual package negotiated with SM reflected the leverage Erie gained under a recent change in state law. Under , which took effect in January 2025, local government-owned mineral rights cannot be force-pooled. Forced pooling allows oil and gas operators, with state approval, to combine mineral interests within a drilling area even when some owners object.

Late last year, the town hired Matt Owens, the founder and CEO of Alameda Mineral Advisors, to help it hammer out a minerals access deal with the company.

Owens is the former an oil and gas company that joined forces with SM as part of a $12.1 billion merger earlier this year.

That was a red flag for Steve Drew, a five-year Erie resident, who wondered why the town would choose a former executive of a company that would, in short order, become part and parcel of the very same operator seeking to develop Draco.

“That’s why conflict of interest laws exist,” he said.

Owens, who wouldn’t comment for this story, told the Boulder Daily Camera in June that his involvement in crafting a deal with SM Energy posed no conflict. He left Civitas in April 2023, according to .

“There is no basis for anyone to complain about a (conflict) because what I am doing benefits Erie,” he said. “And I do not get compensated unless Erie does, so our interests are in lockstep.”

Owens could earn up to $4.5 million for his services if the deal goes forward.

Under the agreement negotiated by Owens, Erie would receive a $4.5 million upfront payment and 3% royalty interest for the life of the project, which the town projected at the time of the council’s vote could range from $19 million to $31 million. The royalties wouldn’t kick in until SM Energy has recovered 200% of its cost to develop Draco.

The agreement would also transfer roughly 160 acres of SM’s land along County Line Road to the town and allow Erie staff to conduct inspections at the Draco well pad, even though it would be located outside town borders.

Drew said the town never properly bid the contract before awarding it to Owens. In June, he hired an attorney to investigate how Erie ended up with Owens as its representative.

The town has acknowledged it violated its purchasing policy in the way it hired Owens.

Town leaders are “investigating what led to these purchasing policy oversights and acknowledge and take responsibility for the errors,” the town

Erie, Drew said, should rip up the contract and start over, not just because of how Owens was hired but because he believes the town didn’t claim all of its underground minerals in its negotiations with SM Energy. The agreement stipulates that Erie will sell 180 acres of municipal mineral rights to SM — roughly 4.9% of the overall Draco drilling area.

According to Erie spokeswoman Gabi Rae, a couple of parcels in the nearly 4,000-acre drilling area have “unclear titles.”

“The final due diligence report should give more information about ownership and sizing,” she said.

That doesn’t allay Drew’s concerns.

“Why would you give away that potential negotiating position?” he said. “This deal could have been done right.”

Aside from the agreement itself, some in Erie are vexed by what they say was an opaque process behind the negotiations with SM Energy, said Brecht, the special election petition organizer.

“When this sale came into the public discussion earlier this year, the mayor framed it to the people of Erie that the town was just exploring whether it was the right option for Erie to sell, versus not sell, its minerals,” she said. “It has become clear that at that point the lawyers were already negotiating the terms of the sale.”

Much of the early discussion took place in executive session, she said, a part of public meetings that are not open to the public. The lack of detail from town leaders “left a lot of residents frustrated,” Brecht said.

Leverage requires discretion, councilman argues

That’s not the way Erie Councilman Brandon Bell sees it.

He voted in favor of the minerals agreement, and he pushed back on the idea that the town’s process was shrouded in secrecy. Executive sessions are a common tool used by elected bodies in Colorado to protect positions and leverage in sensitive negotiations, he said.

“State law allows for executive sessions for negotiation strategies that are held in private so that those are kept from third parties,” Bell said. “Because you don’t want that information getting back to the people you’re negotiating with, and you want to ensure that the town has the strongest position.”

Erie, he said, has had “dozens of other land deals where we’ve had executive sessions.” Killing the deal with SM Energy, Bell said, would still allow drilling to move forward while leaving the town holding a whole lot of nothing in exchange.

“There still is a thought that … if this petition gets brought to a vote, that it’s going to stop Draco,” Bell said. “The petition really just would stop the sale of the mineral rights.”

Councilwoman Emily Baer voted against the agreement with SM Energy in June. There were too many unanswered questions, she said.

The stipulation in the agreement allowing SM to recover twice its cost to develop Draco before Erie receives any royalty payments runs up against the hard reality that oil and gas well yields start to decline precipitously in the first couple of years of operation, she said.

One industry estimate concluded that wells in the Denver-Julesburg basin .

Then there’s the issue of Erie taking energy money in the first place, Baer said.

“It is hard for health and safety to rise to a level of importance when budgets, projects and services rely on oil and gas money,” she said. “I think it is a risk to entangle our budget with oil and gas revenues.”

Baer wants to hear what residents have to say at the ballot box.

“In my opinion,” she said, “having a committed, engaged electorate that is willing to spend the time and effort to ask their fellow neighbors if they’d like to have the opportunity to vote on a matter is an important part of the civic process.”

Oil and gas fights elsewhere

Potential health harms from proximity to oil and gas drilling have long been a major driver of opposition to the practice in Colorado.

Nearly a decade ago,��Colorado voters rejected a ballot measure that would have increased the setback required for new oil and gas wells from homes. But that same 2018 election set the stage for a blue wave that ushered in Democratic state lawmakers determined to turn the tables on oil and gas regulation.

The result: a new state law in 2019 that shifted the focus of the state regulators who consider drilling applications from favoring the industry to ensuring that oil and gas development doesn’t harm human health and the environment.

This year, the ECMC assembled a panel to review several health studies that looked at how exposure to oil and gas fracking — and some of its cancer-causing emissions, like benzene — impacted people living nearby.

It spent eight months reviewing the findings and released in June. However, the report did not reach any conclusions as to whether��Colorado’s rule requiring oil and gas sites to be at least 2,000 feet��from the nearest home is sufficient to protect people’s health.

Randy Willard, who has spent three years fighting drilling proposals near the Aurora Reservoir, isn’t surprised the state hasn’t been stricter about where energy companies can drill. He’s watched both Arapahoe County and the state approve one well pad after another on a state-owned parcel next to��the reservoir and close to his Aurora neighborhood.

“Until the ECMC has a backbone and steps up to bad actors, we won’t see any change,” Willard said.

But that doesn’t mean he won’t stop trying to stop drilling efforts.

Just last week, Willard and his neighbors crowded a meeting of the Arapahoe County commissioners, urging them to reverse their earlier approval of a 24-well pad that will be just over half a mile from homes in Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood.

Willard is looking farther afield to other communities facing similar challenges. To the north of Erie, Verdad Resources submitted an application to Weld County in the spring to drill a 22-well pad near Windsor. To the south, oil giant Chevron is proposing a massive 40-well operation, dubbed Cord Federal, near U.S. 85 and East 136th Avenue, north of Commerce City.

That project is being pursued by a Chevron subsidiary, PDC Energy.

Just over a year ago, there was a well blowout in the Weld County town of Galeton — an incident that spewed pollutants over homes and a school for about five days. Willard said a similar accident near more densely populated communities would be exponentially more disastrous.

Chevron owned the blown well in Galeton, for which it was fined $1.5 million.

“We can help them much more quickly to learn the process,” Willard said of other communities being eyed by the industry. “It’s going to take consistent community engagement and outrage.”

More statehouse action?

While Moore, Erie’s mayor, suspects that a vocal minority is behind the effort to crush Erie’s minerals deal with SM Energy and deprive the town of millions of dollars in revenue, he shares the frustration that many town residents feel about not having the power to change the course of things.

It starts with a lack of jurisdiction, he said: The drilling pad is set to be located in unincorporated Weld County, outside Erie’s borders.

“It’s because state laws are such that oil and gas operators can get permission from the state — and one county — to drill,” he said. “And they can cross county lines. (SM) went outside of Erie to go under Erie. Something just feels wrong about that.”

If state lawmakers want to help empower local communities with meaningful input on drilling decisions, he suggested, they could pass a law prohibiting cross-county access to minerals.

“It would seem to me that we should have more say about what happens in and under our town,” Moore said.

As critical as Brecht has been of Moore and his colleagues on council regarding how they went about crafting the minerals access deal with SM Energy, she agrees that local voices deserve a fuller hearing.

That’s what the effort to get a measure on the ballot is all about, she said.

“In getting a voice, in getting a say in the future of our town, the people of Erie win,” Brecht said. “Whichever way the vote goes.”

CBRE announced Wednesday that the deal adds two levels to the Denver-based company’s existing office space, increasing its footprint in the 52-story tower to 124,333 square feet across five floors.

The expansion follows the of SM Energy and Civitas Resources Inc. earlier this year. The combined company continues to trade under the ticker symbol “SM” and will retain the name SM Energy Co.

1700 Lincoln, also known as the Wells Fargo Center, is a 1.2 million-square-foot office building designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson.

Built in 1983, the tower now features several amenities, including three large conference training rooms, a fitness center, locker rooms, a tenant lounge, connected parking, 24/7 security and a Tuscany Coffee in the lobby.

The building, at 1700 Lincoln St., is 67% occupied, according to CBRE.

Senior vice presidents Allison Berry and Chris Phenicie with CBRE represented the owners, BCSP Denver Property, in the transaction. CBRE’s Lee Diamond and Steve Mulhern with Mulhern & Company represented SM Energy.

“We’re seeing sustained demand for buildings like 1700 Lincoln in downtown Denver that provide tenants with a true value proposition,” Berry said.

“When you focus on competitive inventory, vacancy is tighter than headline figures suggest. For occupiers who want favorable leasing terms without paying premium LoDo or Cherry Creek North rates, buildings such as 1700 Lincoln are very well positioned to meet those tenants’ needs.”����

Founded in 1908, SM Energy Co. is an that acquires, explores, develops and produces crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids in Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah.

Today, the energy extraction conversation in my community is dominated by the Draco Pad deal where the town of . In the deal, SM Energy has agreed to abandon and cap older wells in Weld County and to give the town 158 acres where it will cap older wells. Some of my land happens to be adjacent to the 158 acres Erie is acquiring from SM Energy as part of the agreement.

For years, I worked to get rid of one of the oil and gas wells on the County Line Road side of my farm. After a successful legal battle – with support from the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) – the subject well was removed.�� This improved the air quality for me and residents in the Arapahoe Ridge, Baxter Farms, Candlelight, Canyon Creek, Compass, Country Meadows, Meadow Sweet Farm, Orchard Glen, Parkdale, Rex Ranch, and Vista Point neighborhoods.

I am now focused on getting rid of the remaining well on the North 119th Street side of my farm. It is operated by SM Energy and impacts the same Erie neighborhoods and families.

Under SM Energy’s Draco oil and gas development plan (approved by the ECMC last year), I discovered this last well will be eliminated – further improving the health and welfare of my family and all of my Erie neighbors.

Even better, because SM Energy is extracting minerals horizontally 7,500 feet underground, Draco will minimize oil and gas surface activity in that area. That means there will be no new wells ever again on my property and the properties of many other Erie residents.

One of the conditions of the contract between the Town of Erie and SM Energy is that the company is required to permanently and expeditiously eliminate all of its oil and gas wells in Erie along with additional wells outside of the municipality. This represents 39 surface wells and related facilities (tanks, flowlines, et cetera) across the entire greater Erie area – with their expedited removal benefitting almost every resident of the town.

SM Energy also is required to restore the surfaces where the wells are located and make hundreds of acres available again for parks, recreation, and other community opportunities. Additional neighborhoods which will benefit from this requirement include Colliers Hill, Erie Airpark, Erie Highlands, Erie Village, Kenosha Estates, Kenosha Farms, Lost Creek Farm, and Wildrose.

Furthermore, the contract grants the town a rare and exceptional health and safety benefit to protect those of us who live in or near Erie – the right to inspect the Draco operation even though it is located outside of the town’s jurisdiction.

Today, there are opponents seeking to void this agreement by circulating a petition for a referendum to overturn the contract. While I appreciate their passionate opposition to the use of fossil fuels, I believe, if they truly care about everyone’s health, safety, and welfare, they actually should now support the contract.

As an environmentalist who brought 1041 regulation to Boulder County so it could control large construction projects, I understand the desire to protect our communities. I successfully fought on behalf of citizens being taken advantage of by one of Colorado’s largest water districts, and I improved the air quality of the Erie area by working with Boulder County commissioners to get rid of an operation in which thousands of hens were inhumanely penned. I have always been focused on improving our precious environment.

But I support the Draco deal. This is due to the reality that, because the Draco plan already has been approved, Erie cannot stop the operation. It����ap a “done deal.” The Town and others fought hard in opposition to Draco but lost that battle.

Continuing to fight now doesn’t harm SM Energy; rather, it harms almost every member of our community who wants cleaner air, less noise, and the return of land which previously was dedicated to oil and gas operations. By opposing the contract, the health, safety and welfare of Erie citizens is being jeopardized.

In conclusion, I would encourage Erie residents to not sign any petition and, if the referendum ballot issue is approved, to vote against it. If you truly care about your own family and your neighbors, even if you don’t like oil and gas companies or the use of fossil fuels, it only makes sense to support the town’s efforts to get every benefit it can from an oil and gas company that is going forward with this project regardless of what we do.

I know it can be difficult for us to face unpleasant facts, but Draco is occurring whether Erie is involved or not, so opposing the deal the town made only ends up harming all of us in the end. Instead, let����ap focus on working together to maximize the benefits Erie can obtain today.

Aaron Harber (Aaron@HarberTV.com) is the host of “The Aaron Harber Show” on Rocky Mountain PBS and moved to the Erie area in 1989, when the town had a population of 1,100 and had no paved roads or traffic signals.

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No permit applications for the site have been filed yet with Adams County or the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission. But Chevron has indicated it wants to build the Cord Federal oil and gas development near U.S. 85 and East 136th Avenue, north of Commerce City.

The development would have 40 wells on 22.8 acres but would not have storage tanks for crude oil or water, said Greg Dean, administrator.

The crude oil, gas and produced water would be piped away from the site.

“The proposed design includes several mitigation features, including an electric drilling rig, quiet frac fleet, sound walls and tankless facilities with oil, gas and water piped to and from the pad,”�� Errico wrote in an email to The Denver Post. “Chevron will conduct pre-operations baseline air monitoring and continue air monitoring through construction, drilling, completions and through early production.”

Chevron, which is filing the plan through its subsidiary PDC Energy, will host an open house meeting about its proposal from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Bison Ridge Recreation Center, 13905 E. 112th Ave. in Commerce City. Chevron representatives plan to attend to explain their proposal and answer questions about the plans. Childcare and refreshments will be provided.

The meeting is required by Adams County on all potential oil and gas developments. The Energy and Carbon Management Commission, known as the ECMC, also requires pre-application community meetings if the applicant plans to locate a development in . That means large shares of residents are of various ethnicities,��make lower incomes or have lower education levels.

Although the development is in the early planning stage, it has already alarmed people who live in Commerce City and Brighton.

Adams County has approved three oil and gas development permits in the past year, and the plan proposed by Chevron would be larger than those, Dean��said. Chevron’s plan would also need approval from the county commission as well as the ECMC.

The state requires all oil and gas wells to be at least 2,000 feet away from neighborhoods. Seven homes are within 2,000 feet of a well, Dean said.

Traffic from the site would exit on 136th and travel to U.S. 85.

Christiaan van Wouldenberg, a consultant for , an anti-fracking advocacy group, said his biggest concern was how the fracking project would impact people who already suffer more from pollution than those who live in wealthier parts of Colorado.

“They’re proposing a massive pad in a community that is already overburdened,” van Wouldenberg said. “Is this an overt case of environmental racism? I can’t say that right now, but they’re proposing a fracking pad in a community that is mostly black and brown people.”

People who live in those communities worry about the cumulative impacts of nearby sources of air and water pollution. Last month, the ECME released a report on its review of three health studies that associated oil and gas drilling with childhood leukemia and found acute health risks during the pre-production phase of a drilling pad.

, a Commerce City council member, said she worried about any fracking that might run underneath the city of about 74,000 people. The Derby Fault is beneath the city, and the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, a former chemical weapons depot that’s now a national wildlife refuge, caused multiple earthquakes in the 1960s after its leaders drilled a 2-mile-deep disposal well at the site.

“My concern is that fault could be disrupted again,” Noble said. “It presents risks that other areas in the Front Range don’t have.”

Chevron was fined $1.53 million in March for a well blowout in Galeton in Weld County that spewed pollutants over homes and a school for about five days in April 2025.

If a similar blowout happened at the proposed well site, it would be closer to more people and major traffic arteries such as U.S. 85 and E-470, van Wouldenberg said.

“So if that were to occur, you’d have an economic and environmental disaster on your hands,” he said.

Re: “Addressing e-bike safety starts by cracking down on e-motorcycles,” July 22, editorial.

I often ride the Cherry Creek and other bike paths at a 10-12 mph pace, frequently passed by both more energetic cyclists and e-bikes. Most are courteous and warn me as they approach, and although I am occasionally startled, no accidents yet.

In the e-bike debate, I have yet to hear anyone talk about rights of way. In Cherry Creek State Park, there are signs showing that bikes yield to pedestrians and both bikes and pedestrians yield to horses; in skiing, the overtaken skier has the right of way. I would recommend similar signs and/or regulations indicating that in shared spaces it is clear that e-bikes yield to bicycles, and both yield to pedestrians. It is clearly the considerate thing to do, but it needs to be explicitly stated

Peter Sanford, Englewood

Denver’s shared scooters and bicycles have come at the expense of public safety.

These vehicles are often abandoned on sidewalks, curb ramps, driveways, lawns, and in the street, creating hazards for pedestrians every day.

For people who use wheelchairs, walkers, canes, or mobility scooters, a blocked sidewalk can be impassable and force them into traffic. Older adults, people with visual impairments, parents with strollers, and other pedestrians also risk tripping over them.

The companies profiting from these fleets bear too little responsibility for the disorder they create. Why should Denver residents have to step around — or move — someone else’s abandoned scooter?

The city should treat this as the serious accessibility and safety issue it is. Shared scooters and bikes should be parked only in designated areas, with fines for blocking sidewalks and stronger penalties for repeat violations.

Innovation should not come at the expense of people with disabilities, seniors, or public safety. Our sidewalks are for people, not abandoned rental vehicles. It����ap time to put pedestrians first.

Sam Marcove, Denver

Protect food from all contaminants, not just cyclospora

Re: “FDA still focused on lettuce supplier as source of parasite despite test,” July 21 news story.

The recent article on the cyclospora outbreak is an important reminder that food safety extends beyond bacteria and parasites. We also need to address the chemicals that come in contact with our food every day. Forever chemicals (PFAS) are commonly used in food packaging and can migrate into the food we eat.

While outbreaks like cyclospora demand immediate action, long-term chemical contamination deserves the same urgency. Consumers shouldn’t have to worry about hidden health risks from the packaging. Stronger regulations and safer alternatives are essential to protect public health. Safe food means more than preventing bacteria and parasite contamination; it also means ensuring the packaging itself doesn’t expose people to harmful chemicals that can persist in our bodies and the environment for decades.

Caroline Garland, Centennial

Why are we still subsidizing oil and gas industry?

Re: “Study: Last winter’s snow drought sign of the future,” July 22 news story.

I am grateful – I guess – to Colorado School of Mines scientist Adrienne Marshall for the analysis that found we can expect winters with dismal snowpack like last year’s to become the norm by the end of the century.

As depressing as this analysis is, it is worth remembering that we American taxpayers are paying for this, to the tune of to the oil and gas industry. When the estimated costs of environmental and public health damages are included, the total is closer to $760 billion annually. Those costs feel very real in Colorado as we watch hundreds of homes destroyed by wildfires. Our winter recreation industry is being decimated and our summer outdoor recreation curbed by dangerous air quality index reports.

Call me cuckoo, but I think the 150-year-old oil business is ready to stand on its own two feet without taxpayer subsidies. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the fossil fuel industry and similar polluters be charged a carbon fee for the thousands of tons of pollution they pour into our air. That revenue could go to the American households who now bear these externalized costs without ever giving consent. I’m just saying.

Luke Clarke, Golden

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The study, published in May 2025, sounded an alarm for communities surrounding well sites, and it got the attention of the , the state body that regulates the oil and gas industry.

The commission assembled a panel to review that report along with two others that looked at how exposure to oil and gas fracking impacted the people who live near well sites. They spent eight months reviewing and released in June.

However, the report did not reach any conclusions as to whether Colorado’s rule requiring oil and gas sites to be at least 2,000 feet from the nearest home is sufficient to protect people’s health. Nor did it make any policy recommendations, leaving the commission’s critics to wonder just how much evidence is needed to effect change.

“It����ap a good first step. But what’s missing here is what is the action that will come from these findings and from putting time into this work,” said Guadalupe Solis, who served on the commission’s panel and is director of public health and advocacy at , a community health nonprofit that is active in Adams County.

Meanwhile, oil and gas industry representatives welcomed the review, saying it is important for Colorado regulators to follow science.

Carly West, executive director of the , said the review reinforced confidence in the state’s 2,000-foot setback rule.

“The evidence doesn’t support changing Colorado’s existing regulatory framework at this time,” she said.

While no policy changes will be forthcoming, the ECMC is accepting on its Public Health Studies Review until Aug. 7. Comments may be submitted online at

The commission’s review reflects the nature of scientific research and how different parties can interpret results differently, based on their interests. Long-term studies are complicated and nuanced, rarely producing definitive conclusions. And that can make it hard for policymakers to enact change even as critics grow antsy over increasing public-health concerns.

Energy and Carbon Management commissioner Trisha Oeth said during a Tuesday night public meeting that she convened the panel after seeing the reports and hearing from the community.

She recruited 14 people, including medical doctors, scientists, state regulators, an industry representative and public health experts from the community, to meet with the researchers and ask questions.

She wanted the commission to understand the science, but she never intended for the group to make policy recommendations.

“It does not change ECMC rules,” Oeth said. “It doesn’t make permit decisions, and it does not say that every health question has been answered. We certainly did not take that on.”

Instead, the panel recommended further study of the cumulative risks of oil and gas development and what it means for people who live near multiple well sites.

And that frustrated those who live near the sites and have been fighting for better public health protections.

‘We need to keep paying attention’

Laurie Anderson, a Colorado field organizer for , said she believes that Oeth had the right intentions when she called for a panel to review the three studies.

But Anderson said the commission, the oil and gas industry and the public are looking for a definitive study that will answer everyone’s questions as to how far apart oil and gas development and neighborhoods should be.

“They just so badly want to justify that 2,000-foot setback and that everything is going to be OK,” Anderson said.

Anderson started fighting oil and gas development after moving to Broomfield in 2015, and she said there is mounting evidence that fracking operations cause illnesses, both long-term and short-term.

She is growing tired of various government agencies waiting on a definitive study while continuing to issue drilling permits.

“They just continue to permit,” Anderson said. “Pretty much they’re going to frack anything in this area before they get the study that says, ‘Whoops, we weren’t as protective as we should have been.'”

During Tuesday night’s informational session on the health panel’s findings, Dr. Jacob Fox, a pulmonologist at UCHealth who studies respiratory disease and climate change, said the leukemia research was an “excellent study.” It showed an association between childhood leukemia and fracking, and it adds to a growing body of evidence that fracking emissions are associated with childhood cancer.

Still, it did not determine a safe distance for families with children, Fox said.

“It����ap something as community members we need to keep paying attention to,” he said.

William Allshouse, one of the paper’s authors, said it’s nearly impossible to make a definitive link between fracking and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which mainly affects children between the ages of 2 and 5. That’s because the scientists were not measuring the actual pollutants the children were exposed to.

That would require more air monitors and more money, he said.

“This is the best we can do with the available information to build that body of evidence,” Allshouse said. “We can’t say this pollutant is causing this cancer at this distance. If we’re going to continue to drill these large sites, they should be monitored to see what’s coming off the well pad to protect the people that live near them.”

Still, Allshouse said he was glad to see the ECMC look at the study.

“Obviously I would like to see things happen more quickly, but I’m glad it����ap not getting lost either,” he said.

Examining three studies

The leukemia paper was one of three 2025 studies reviewed by the panel.

A by the Environmental Defense Fund and Colorado State University looked at the cumulative health risk of the Front Range’s ozone pollution and volatile organic compounds released by oil and gas sites. That study found acute health risks persist even when best management practices exist, and recommended that drilling and well construction stop during the summer ozone season, which stretches from June 1 to Aug. 31.

“There are limits to how broadly we can apply this finding,” Oeth said. “The sites studied had specific practices, and oil and gas practices were changing during the study period, which is very common in research. So ultimately this study helps us understand risk, but it certainly doesn’t answer every question for every site. No study can do that.”

A study by a CSU researcher measured air pollution and noise exposure at oil and gas development in northeastern Colorado’s . It was funded by the Health Effects Institute.

That study found that noise around wells is a concern and that benzene is the greatest air pollutant risk, but it did not identify any chronic health hazards during operations at the tested sites.

That result bolstered the industry’s arguments that a 2,000-foot setback is enough to protect nearby residents.

“One of the things the review reinforced was confidence in Colorado’s setback requirements,” said West, of the American Petroleum Institute. “The hope is always that the regulations you put into place achieve what you want to achieve.”

Oeth repeatedly reminded the audience at Tuesday’s meeting that the commission’s review did not settle every scientific question.

“It’s meant to help the public, help the ECMC as an agency and help our partner agencies better understand what these studies found, what they did not prove and where more work is needed,” she said.

Colorado needs to follow California’s lead and take a more comprehensive look at research that studies the connection between oil and gas drilling and public health, said Dr. Sara Carpenter, executive director of .

“What concerns me the most about the ECMC report is it����ap not that thorough,” Carpenter said. “I think it was a great idea to convene a panel and say, ‘Let����ap look at this.’ But it����ap only three studies.”

In 2024, the California Geologic Energy Management Division released after a 15-member panel it commissioned reviewed thousands of studies on oil and gas production’s impact on public health and then picked 72 from across the United States and Canada to focus on.

The panel concluded that enough evidence existed to show that oil and gas operations cause respiratory diseases such as asthma and perinatal health problems such as low birthweights, preterm births and congenital abnormalities, Carpenter said. And California clearly stated that its findings would be used to make policy decisions. It reinforced the state’s 2022 decision to make setbacks a minimum of 3,200 feet.

More research has been conducted since that paper was released, and Colorado could have picked up the torch and added to the body of work, she said.

“If this bleeds into inaction at a policy level, that����ap a problem,” Carpenter said. “Why reinvent the wheel? I think these guys reinvented a spoke.”