Below is a transcript of Commissioner Cross’ testimony during the March 26, 2025 deliberations on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). Please excuse any transcription errors.
Commissioner Cross: I think initially I’ll start off saying I’m in favor of this application. I think there’s a lot of good things about it. I’ll start with the benefits of the location as applied for. I think when you look at the alternatives that were provided, this is definitely the best alternative. I’ll go into a little bit more detail on alternative 4 and 4.1 as it’s being called later, but just to talk about the overall benefits of this location.
I think a few things that were discussed previously are important to bring back now. Civitas did work to get informed consent on this location, which I think is important to note. They worked with both the developer to get the construction, drilling, and completion timeline done, as well as some additional steps to minimize and mitigate impacts for the future community. These included things like air monitoring and viewshed modifications. It was also a way to locate the site furthest away from a lot of the different receptors. We didn’t have to worry about high priority habitat or disproportionately impacted communities.
Going back to the questions I asked a minute ago, I think it’s also important to note that they did also work not just with the relevant local government – Weld County here – but also the approximate local government in Erie. Erie had been involved. Erie asked for numerous things in the application including the paving of the road, and so the operator here did work with the town of Erie to identify the landfill transportation route that would work best and be the least impactful, and paving that road to make it a benefit as well.
There were additional requests from the town of Erie that were made as it went along – some of the air monitoring, some of the soil monitoring, some of the decommission of wells, etc. that were asked for, and the operator here did agree to those.
So I think looking at the location provided, this really was the best location. I think that’s also evident in what we saw from both the previous testimony as well as the testimony today. Even when you look at what the town of Erie said, it’s not as though they had a preference for alternative 4. In fact, there are probably, as we’ll discuss here in a minute, some issues with alternative 4.
They didn’t have a specific concern with trying to construct, drill, and complete from this location. A lot of the concerns were more so with: one, the length of the laterals and some of the existing infrastructure that’s already in place; and two, making sure that this would be done before anybody moved into this new neighborhood, which is something that already is being worked on with the operator and the Southern Land Company, with steps being taken to do that.
I think when you look at the BMPs (Best Management Practices), this is really important to me because this is probably one of the best, if not the best applications that we’ve seen come before us. Just some of the key takeaways you get from it is we are making – they are making sure they have the three-phase takeaway here. So they are going to have oil pipeline, they are going to have produced water pipeline, they are going to have the natural gas pipeline put into place.
All this is not only going to reduce the need for tanks, and they are having a tankless facility here with a larger separator. So they’re not going to have a separator per well as well, which means you’re going to have less emissions from that, but it’s also reducing truck trips. That’s going to be vastly impactful.
The fact that they’re not just electrifying for their drilling here, but they’re going to be doing two electric rigs to speed up the pre-production work here. And a couple of the other things that we’re seeing above and beyond: they’re using a large amount of recycled water. Now obviously we see that more in the West Slope, but I think it’s important to note here that in the DJ Basin, where we don’t see as much recycled water usage even though our new rules are going to be requiring that, the operator here was kind of ahead of the game at this location, making sure that they are using recycled water and having a commitment to using a lot of this recycled water for their operations.
Again, I think ahead of the game and what we’re even requiring at this point in time, they’re also having a partially electric powered completions process. If I remember right, I believe it was 10% of the completions is going to be electrically powered, and that’s above and beyond what we’re seeing from operators now too. So all this is going to be minimizing the impact that’s on the actual location as well as reducing emissions and really going above and beyond what we require.
And again, one of the things that we do often see from people, but it’s important to note especially for the long-term implications of the facility, is it’s going to be an electrified production facility. So that’s going to also have reduced emissions over the life of the facility that will be near the eventual development that is occurring close by.
So I want to next talk about some of the safety concerns. Again, this was something that was talked about more in the previous hearing as opposed to today, but I do think that there’s a couple things that were important to note about the safety and some of the concerns that were raised by the public, especially during the 511 hearing.
I do acknowledge that these are the longest laterals that we have out here, but as you look back at the testimony we had last time, the testimony showed this is not some unreasonable or untested drilling that they’re trying to do here. In fact, this operator has already done wells that are near the length of laterals that’s being done here. In fact, the testimony came out that the wells that are being proposed here are only 3,000 feet longer than the longest wells that they have drilled in the state now. So it’s not as though they’re trying to double their longest laterals that they’ve previously done or anything like that.
Other operators in other areas of the country have drilled wells with laterals of this length, so it’s nothing unheard of. We again heard Mr. Frank today talk about the fact that these are the longest laterals out there and that it’s kind of a test case, and a test case should not be done underneath people and everything else. But this really isn’t a test case. Yes, this is going to be the longest lateral, but as we talked about – and a lot of my questions at the last hearing, I wanted to go into how do you avoid collision with existing wells, how do you make sure that you’re testing the pressures – and we went through that. We went through that testimony with their drilling experts to talk about the kind of technology and steps that they use to make sure that they don’t hit existing wells as they’re drilling these longer laterals. And as they said in the last hearing, they have never hit an existing well before. So I think a lot of the concerns that were raised by the public were answered in that prior testimony as well.
I also think that it’s important to note that by having these longer wells, you’re also reducing the surface disturbance that would be required overall. So instead of having multiple locations, you’re able to do it from one location. You’re going to allow for greater distance from different receptors. Again, we’re not in any high priority habitat, we’re not in any disproportionately impacted communities, so you’re reducing the potential impacts to some of those different receptors.
Next, I do want to talk about alternative location 4. Again, even the town of Erie said that there’s no preference between the location chosen and alternative location 4, and I do think that that is important. I think when you really delve down into it, the key thing that came out during the testimony today is that there is no appreciable benefit from what was happening in alternative 4. In fact, there are a lot more problems that would happen in alternative 4 and with alternative 4.1 as it was being dubbed, that you do not see at this location. This goes back to why I was saying this location really is the best location that was proposed and why it was proposed in the first place.
When you have the proximity to the landfill – understanding that it’s not on the landfill – but the place where they could locate it as close as they could while still meeting the other rules would be so close that they would have to have a lot of additional work with CDPHE. There would still be potential negative effects to the landfill with any kind of storm runoff, as was talked about. Really, the way to avoid those impacts with respect to the landfill would be to move it to alternative 4.1, which is still going to have the high priority habitat issues because of the burrowing owl habitat. But now you’re also going to be closer to people.
So alternative 4.1 almost immediately gets pushed away because you’re going to be even closer to a greater amount of people, but now you’re going to have to have different issues with respect to zoning. You’re going to have the surface water proximity issues that, as discussed, may not have been something that Erie said this is 100% a no-go because of X, Y, and Z. But when you look at the regulations that you have, you are able to sort of get an idea of the likelihood of the ability to rezone given these surface water proximity issues, given the fact that there’s already an ongoing zoning dispute with the current landowner.
To me, I think the fact that Civitas is not the landowner, and so the rezoning that would have to be done with the landowner would have to be through another party who’s already involved in litigation with the town of Erie, I think really highlights the difficulty, if not impossibility, of this being rezoned. When you go through and you look at the town of Erie regulations, the town of Erie planning, and trying to say we’re going to take what’s currently zoned for housing and we’re going to now turn it into heavy industrial and try and meet all of that, I really just don’t see that as a possibility.
So to me, even though I thought that this work was done at the last application, I’m happy for them to go back and provide additional detail on alternative location 4. I think that additional information, as well as the additional information that was gleaned from CDPHE and their Hazardous Materials Program with respect to the landfill, shows that alternative 4 really isn’t a possibility for here, further evidencing the fact that the proposed location is the best location.
Again, as the testimony showed, even if you want to say that alternative 4 is a possibility, it’s not as though alternative 4 is going to have a greater protection of public health, safety, welfare, environment, and wildlife resources – in fact, probably less of a protection for that. So for me, I think the elimination of alternative 4 and the now 4.1 was appropriate in the application.
So I think the next place, and probably the most impactful to me, is the benefits of what’s happening in this application versus the status quo. Because ultimately I think that’s what we have to look at: is what’s happening in the status quo better than what’s happening in this application? And frankly, I think it’s not. That’s because of, as was shown again, what’s going to be happening for the offsets that are occurring.
So by drilling these wells, they’re no longer going to have to hold leases. They’re going to be able to plug, as they said in the last hearing as well as today, 22 wells plugged, 18 locations decommissioned, 24 oil tanks decommissioned, 13 water tanks decommissioned. You’re reducing thousands of truck trips. All of these are going to be reducing emissions. So when you look at the cumulative impact side of things as well, they’re actually going to be reducing emissions and getting rid of some of these older legacy wells by what is happening here.
When you get rid of a lot of these older legacy wells, to me that is perhaps the most crucial part of what’s being proposed in here. Because what we heard when we went to that 511 hearing at the middle school in Erie, what we heard from public comment, what we heard when we listened to Mr. Frank’s initial presentation is that a lot of these wells – and when you go back and you look at the presentation from Civitas in the first hearing as well – a lot of these older legacy vertical wells are right next to schools, they’re right next to houses.
So these are the wells that have the greatest chances of leaks, these are the wells that have the greatest chances of emissions coming out. So not only are they going to be reducing overall emissions, but they’re going to be getting rid of these problematic older wells that are more likely to have problems in the future, that are right next to houses, that are right next to schools.
So I think not only are we seeing an application that has some of the best, if not the best, best management practices we’ve seen in an application before us – the fully electrified, the additional water recycling, the partially electrified completions – we’re also making sure that they get rid of a lot of these problematic wells that are closer to people and could have greater negative impacts to public health, welfare, safety, and environment and wildlife resources.
That’s the biggest thing to me overall. So when you get to the bottom line, I think number one, first and foremost, this does meet our rules. I think it is protective of public health, safety, welfare, environment, and wildlife resources. Again, it’s one of the, if not the most protective application we’ve seen in terms of the BMPs that are being provided.
They’ve worked with the relevant local government, they’ve worked with the proximate local government, they’ve worked with the developer to make sure that they add on additional protections, they added on additional minimization measures such as some of their sight line impacts to make sure that that would be reduced in the future as well.
Perhaps again most importantly, this is going to have a net benefit to the town of Erie for emissions reductions as well as the removal of potentially dangerous legacy wells that could have facilities leaking right by houses and schools. So for that, I do think that this does meet our rules, I think it’s approvable, and my vote will be yes on this application.”
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