Protecting Erie: By residents, for residents.
Have you ever used the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission’s Complaint tool? It’s the primary mechanism for impacted residents to raise concerns about oil & gas operations in Colorado, but it’s a bit of a black hole — you rarely know what happens to your complaint after you submit it.
Continue reading “The Life of an ECMC Complaint”UPDATE: In a 4-3 vote at a December 16th meeting, the Erie Town Council voted to approve the settlement agreement with Stratus Redtail Ranch.
After the hearing was delayed a week by the Erie Town Council due to an administrative issue with publication of supporting documentation, the Redtail Ranch settlement agreement has been rescheduled for consideration at the Council’s December 16th meeting.
The original 2020 Redtail Ranch sketch plan adhered to an older 350 foot setback for oil & gas. In an attempt to appease a health/safety focused Town Council in 2024, Stratus proposed a modified plat that adhered to the Town’s current 500 foot setbacks. That application was rightfully denied for a failure to “promote the public health, safety, and general welfare” given the existing oil & gas wells onsite, as well as environmental concerns about contamination from IBM chemical waste dumped on the site in the late 1960s.
As a part of the proposed settlement agreement, Stratus Redtail Ranch has proposed a modified preliminary plat that includes the plugging and abandonment of 6 oil & gas wells operated by KP Kauffman at the SRC Pratt 34-29D location. This will allow the developer to add 49 additional homes due to the reduced 150 foot setback distance required by Erie’s Unified Development Code (UDC) for plugged wells, as opposed to a 500 ft setback required for active wells.
Sounds great, right? The developer gets to build more homes, and the residents benefit from a reduced oil & gas footprint on the site. What if I told you they’re only addressing 20 percent of the problem?
The reality is there are 23 other active wells (for a total of 29) on the proposed Redtail Ranch site, not to mention three adjacent landfills and an EPA superfund site. No other land use application has ever come before the Erie Town Council with such an active oil & gas footprint; rather, developments like Westerly have understood the political landscape and proactively plugged and abandoned all active wells on their properties before building homes. So why is Redtail Ranch different? Let’s examine each of the 5 oil & gas locations in detail, in decreasing likelihood of action by the developer or the oil & gas operators.
| Operator | Location | Active Wells | Low-Producing Wells |
| KP Kauffman | SRC Pratt 34-29D | 6 | 5 |
| KP Kauffman | SRC Pratt 41-29D | 6 | 6 |
| KP Kauffman | SRC Pratt 24-29D(1) | 4 | 4 |
| Crestone Peak Resources | Pratt 29H-P168 | 6 | 1 |
| Crestone Peak Resources | Waste Connections 29H-M168(1) | 7 | 1 |
(1) While the Waste Connections and SRC Pratt #24-29D locations are 200 feet outside of the proposed preliminary plat boundaries, they are located on land owned by the applicant and within the 500 foot setback, and thus included in this analysis.
Commonly known as the Pratt pad, where residents filed 347 complaints with the ECMC for the fracking operations in 2017, the Pratt 29H-P168 pad sits in the heart of the proposed Redtail Ranch development. One well is already classified as “low-producing” by the ECMC, meaning it produces on average less than 2 barrels of oil per day (this is an over-simplification, as the criteria are quite complicated). Plugging and abandoning all the wells at this site would have the greatest net benefit for residents in Redtail Ranch, but since 5 of the 6 wells are still producing, the operator has no motivation to do so. Bad for residents, bad for the developer.
Stratus Redtail Ranch has negotiated with KP Kauffman to plug and abandon the 6 producing wells at the SRC Pratt 34-29D location, just north of the Pratt pad. 5 of the 6 active wells are classified as low-producing. The reclamation of this site will allow the developer to add almost 50 homes to the development. Good for residents, good for the developer.
This location sits just north of the “environmentally sensitive area” at the northeast corner of the Redtail Ranch. All 6 of the active wells owned and operated by KP Kauffman are classified as low-producing. The developer isn’t working with the operator to plug and abandon these wells because neither of them stands to benefit. It’ll only cost money for the operator, and the developer won’t be able to add additional homes due to a reduced setback because of the contaminated soils in the Neuhauser landfill (explained further below). Bad for residents.
Nearby residents filed 554 complaints for the fracking at the Waste Connections pad operated by Crestone Peak Resources at the west end of the proposed development, the most ever for any oil & gas site in Colorado. As with the Pratt site, 1 well is already classified as low-producing; the remaining 6 wells are not. Neither the developer nor the operator stand to benefit from plugging and abandoning these wells.
The 4 KPK wells at the SRC Pratt 24-29D location just south of the Waste Connections pad are all low-producing, and should be plugged and abandoned. In doing so, the developer could restore 3-5 lots at the end of Ravine Place at the far southwest edge of the development.
I’m reminded of a statement made by the Town’s Environmental Services Director David Frank during the Draco OGDP hearings last spring. “We are a county of laws, not a country of justice.” I fear this Council will approve this settlement agreement because the developer has met the minimum legal requirements, but meeting the letter of the law does not make this development safe or responsible.
Objectively, for the 29 active oil & gas wells, the surrounding landfills, and the environmental concerns around toxic chemical contamination, this is the worst land use proposal that has ever come before the Erie Town Council. Put simply, it would be irresponsible of the Town Council to allow, and for the developer to proceed to build homes on this parcel. The risks to future residents are too significant to dismiss. The question then is whether the Town Council is brave enough to defend its residents’ health and safety, or will they cave to a developer that prioritizes profit over people?
In response to public comment made during their October 29th meeting, Ellice Devine, ECMC UIC Program Coordinator gave an update on data issues discovered in produced water reporting.
In Summary:
Chair Robbins: This is the Energy and Carbon Management Commission. It is October 22nd, 2025. We are back in session. We’re going to take up docket 2301, an oil and gas development plan, the Washington OGDP. This one has an unusual procedural history. I think it was in September we heard the Washington OGDP and the commission voted at that time to stay further consideration of this matter. That was based upon the uncontroverted fact that there was a bald eagle nest within a distance that precluded the commission from being able to favorably vote on the OGDP.
Chair Robbins: My understanding from the record that I’ve read is that since that time and here in the recent weeks, the tree that contained the bald eagle nest lost not one, not two, but three limbs. And the third limb that was lost, it was blown down, contained the actual eagle’s nest. And my understanding is that if we were to speak with the CPW folks, they would confirm all of that and they would also confirm to us that there is no longer an objection from Colorado Parks and Wildlife relevant to the eagle’s nest and that it is no longer a factor for consideration by the commission in terms of looking at the OGDP in question. So the wildlife concern no longer exists. So with that I think the first order of action, and I’m looking to Attorney Boudreaux to maybe show up as well. Do I need to take any evidence on any of that or can that all just be sort of understood by commission as being true because then I’m going to take up the unopposed motion to vacate the stay.
Continue reading “Washington OGDP Docket 2301 Hearing Transcript (Bald Eagle Nest): October 22, 2025”
Now that the ECMC Chemical Disclosures “database” has data for 158 locations, let’s look at the chemicals disclosed. We previously looked at the chemical disclosure for the Cosslett East location, and found 4 chemicals (by CAS Number) that Crestone Peak Resources had never before listed in their FracFocus disclosures.
As of July 17, 2025, the ECMC Chemical Disclosures data contain 4,735 chemical entries for 158 locations and 172 distinct chemical CAS Numbers. These are the 28 chemicals that have never before been disclosed to FracFocus for any Colorado frac job, according to their CAS Number, as well as their general purpose in oil & gas extraction.
Continue reading “ECMC Chemical Disclosures Include 28 Never-Before Disclosed Chemicals”
On June 27, 2025, Crestone Peak Resources finally submitted the required chemical disclosures for the hydraulic fracturing jobs at Cosslett East, 5 weeks after PSR/FracTracker’s expose on missing chemical disclosures was published on May 20, 2025. This report was submitted 679 days late; it was originally due on August 18, 2024, 150 days after the last well was spud on March 21, 2023. It’s yet another example where the industry is only held accountable by activist organizations where state regulatory agencies fail to do so.
Continue reading “Chemical Disclosures Now Available for Cosslett East”This is a transcript of the June 26, 2025 update of the Bishop Well Incident by the ECMC Commissioners in a special meeting, published to YouTube.
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In a special meeting on June 26, 2025, ECMC representatives announced Notice of Alleged Violation (NOAV) 404256913, issued to Noble Energy Inc as a result of the Bishop A07 blowout incident on April 6, 2025. The NOAV is searchable via the ECMC’s COGIS Incident Inquiry database.
Additional documents regarding the Bishop well blowout are available at the spill and facility doc pages at the ECMC:
As per ECMC regulations, Noble Energy Inc will have an opportunity to respond to the NOAV. While not announced today, we hope the ECMC will announce a significant penalty for this record-breaking environmental disaster, as they did for the Firestone Tragedy.
Continue reading “ECMC Issues NOAV to Noble Energy for Bishop A07 Blowout Incident”On Tuesday, May 20, 2025, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), PSR Colorado, Colorado Sierra Club, and FracTracker Alliance released a report that highlighted low compliance with a 2022 Colorado law designed to prevent toxic exposure to the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.
Of the 1,114 wells highlighted in the report, 14 of them are located in Erie at the Cosslett East #22H-H168 pad, where wells were drilled and hydraulically fractured in 2023.
This transcript was prepared from the YouTube video of the ECMC Commissioner Hearing on April 30, 2025.
Continue reading “ECMC Update: Bishop A07-01 Pad Well Control Incident”