The Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP) hearing has been rescheduled for March 13th, 2025. Extraction Oil & Gas submitted an updated 127 page prehearing statement, which we’ve analyzed below.
TL;DR (Too Long, Didn’t Read)
“Extraction believes that AL 4 and AL 4.1 are objectively infeasible alternatives to the Draco Pad,” citing 200+ homes within 2,000 ft, difficulties with rezoning to heavy industrial, an inability to procure an oil & gas permit from the Town of Erie, and uncertainty in negotiating with the Town Council. They propose moving forward with the original Draco Pad location just north of the Crestone Hub northwest of CR6 and CR7 just outside of Erie, Colorado.
Of the 344 locations identified by the Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) that are a part of the data falsification initially reported in November, 2024, 5 are in and around Erie, Colorado. Below are additional details about the spills and remediation efforts at these sites.
Someone recently asked, “How much of Erie’s soil has been and will be hauled away?” The short answer is 8,722 cubic yards of contaminated soils have been excavated from Erie since the ECMC started making this data available in 2014. This is equivalent to 632 dump truck loads, each carrying 14 cubic yards. Of these 18 spills, 16 reported an “unknown” volume of oil spilled, and 13 reported an “unkown” volume of condensate spilled.
Here’s the breakout for each year:
Year
Number of Spills
Total Soil Excavated (Cubic Yards)
2014
–
–
2015
1
1,200
2016
1
60
2017
3
4,413
2018
–
–
2019
–
–
2020
3
1,975
2021
–
–
2022
3
685
2023
5
350
2024
2
39
When we expand our search to the entire State of Colorado, there are 2,292 spills that required soil excavation, with an average of 165 cubic yards excavated for a total of 687,513 cubic yards excavated. The distribution of these data is shown in the chart below:
This chart shows the distribution of number of cubic yards of soil excavated for the 2,292 spills reported to the ECMC where some volume of soil was excavated.
After 8 hours of testimony and deliberations over two days last week, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) voted unanimously on Friday to indefinitely stay a decision on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP) in unincorporated Weld County, less than 500 feet outside of the Town of Erie.
The proposed Draco wellbores extend over 5 miles west through Erie and into Boulder County, and will hydraulically fracture and extract minerals underneath 4,500 homes. These wellbores also threaten 72 existing wells in the drilling & spacing unit (DSU) and many more nearby, prompting concern, outrage, and action from local residents. The Draco stay decision is cause to celebrate … right? Right?
The proposed site is surrounded by the Denver Regional Landfill to the north and the Front Range Landfill to the east. As of June 13, 2024, the site is host to 22 producing wells, 7 shut in wells, and 2 plugged and abandoned wells. All 29 of the active wells on the site will have to be plugged and abandoned in the future.
The Town of Erie has logged the most complaints to the ECMC of any municipality in Colorado, as shown on this map of oil & gas infrastructure and complaints. Data from the ECMC.
This map depicts the existing oil & gas infrastructure in and around the Town of Erie, just north of Denver, Colorado. Erie is on the front lines of the battle between responsible residential development and oil & gas exploration of the Denver-Julesburg basin. During drilling and completions operations at the Waste Connections and Pratt sites just north of the Vista Ridge development in Erie, almost 1,000 complaints were logged for noise and odor issues.
The data was compiled using GIS data downloaded from the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) web site at https://ecmc.state.co.us/ on May 3, 2025.
This map has been created for the Erie Protectors in partnership with EcoCarto, a local mapping consulting firm. Visit their online store to order a high resolution printed 24″ x 36″ poster or PDF of any of these maps, and please contact us if you would like to have us create a similar map for your area.
Thank you for joining us at the Erie Community Library on June 12th from 5:00 to 7:00 for an information and question & answer session about the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). We had over 50 people attend! Community activists, local elected officials, and other knowledgeable experts were on hand to answer your questions about this large-scale oil & gas development plan that affects neighborhoods in Erie, Colorado.
Watch the recording of the April 16, 2024 Erie Board of Trustees Draco Study Session on the Town of Erie’s web site. The Draco presentation begins at the 54 minute mark.
Locations where Extraction Oil & Gas had originally indicated they would plug legacy wells are shown in red circles with dotted red lines.
This map depicts the existing oil & gas infrastructure in and around the proposed drilling and spacing unit (DSU) for the Draco Oil and Gas Development Plan (OGPD). The well pad for the proposed 26 wells is several miles east of the DSU, just north of the Crestone Hub at CR 6 and CR 7 in unincorporated Weld County.
Colorado House District 19 is inundated with oil & gas infrastructure; shown here are the hundreds of wells and directional lines that cross the district.
This map depicts the existing and planned oil & gas infrastructure within and surrounding Colorado House District 19.
It was compiled using GIS data downloaded from the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) web site at https://ecmc.state.co.us/ on June 11, 2024.
This map has been created for the Erie Protectors in partnership with EcoCarto, a local mapping consulting firm. Visit their online store to order a high resolution printed 24″ x 36″ poster or PDF of any of these maps, and please contact us if you would like to have us create a similar map for your area.
This visualization shows the amount of water used to frac each of the wells drilled within the municipal boundaries of Erie, Colorado since 2017. The data is grouped by operator, with the most recently fracked wells shown first. In total, 626.48 million gallons of water have been used to frac these wells, with a median of 9.64 million gallons of water used to frac each of the 57 wells.
