Crestone Peak Resources – Erie Protectors

December 17, 2025December 17, 2025

The Redtail Ranch Oil & Gas Debacle: When Developers and Oil & Gas Operators Collide, Residents Lose

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.

How Did We Get Here?

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.

The Current Proposal

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 of Building Homes In An Oilfield

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.

Active Wells by Operator and Location at Redtail Ranch

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.

Pratt 29H-P168 and SRC Pratt 34-29D

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.

SRC Pratt 41-29D

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.

Waste Connections 29H-M168 and SRC Pratt 24-29D

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.

Meeting the Letter of the Law vs. Doing What’s Right

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?

July 5, 2025July 15, 2025

Chemical Disclosures Now Available for Cosslett East

An aerial image of the Cosslett East facility (separators and other infrastructure), operated by Crestone Peak Resources.

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.

May 21, 2025July 15, 2025

PSR Report: Colorado Oil & Gas Operators Fail to Report Fracking Chemicals

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.

View the full report at PSR Colorado ⇒

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.

August 25, 2024July 15, 2025

Extreme Reach Wellbores Require Extreme Water Use

Or, the march to the first billion gallon frac pad in Colorado

To understand the massive quantities of water that may be consumed to hydraulically fracture the 26 extreme reach wellbores at Draco, let’s look at the water used by the 394 hydraulic fracturing treatments logged thus far in 2024 to FracFocus, courtesy of the data wizards at Open FF who have made extensive inroads to sanitize and extend the FracFocus data.

Actual Water Use is Twice Estimated for Extreme Reach Wellbores

Let’s start with the upper extremes, as shown in the graph above. From the Cumulative Impacts analysis for the Blue Pad in Adams County, Crestone estimated they would consume between 102.9 and 147 million gallons of water to frac the 7 wells at Blue.

Crestone Peak Resources used a median of 47.7 million gallons of water per well and permanently poisoned 304 million gallons of water, more than twice their upper estimate!

Redtail Ranch Environmental Concerns Map

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.

Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan (CAP) Map

This map depicts the existing oil & gas infrastructure in and around the proposed Lowry Comprehensive Area Plan (CAP) near the Aurora Reservoir in Arapahoe County, Colorado.

January 25, 2024July 15, 2025

ECMC Complaints Analysis

As complicated and difficult as it can be to submit a complaint to the ECMC (fka COGCC) about an air quality, noise, or odor issue at an oil and gas facility in Colorado, the number of complaints lodged with any location is a good measure of the negative impact that oil & gas exploration has in our neighborhoods. With data obtained from the ECMC, here’s a data table showing the sites that logged more than 20 complaints of any kind since 2010.

January 15, 2024July 15, 2025

Water Usage for Hydraulic Fracturing in Erie, Colorado

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.

How much water does fracking use, Part VI

In Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V of this series, we showed that each hydraulic fractured well permanently poisons millions of gallons of water.

Once again, the Erie community is under assault with the 26-well proposed Draco pad and an additional 18 wells proposed to be drilled at the Coyote Trails pad. Let’s look at the data for the Cosslett East wells, completed in September 2023.

A total of 178,725,812 gallons of water were used to drill these wells, with a median of 13,261,197 gallons per well. This is 18.4% less than the median water use for the original Cosslett wells, but without completion information for these wells (the data is not yet available at the ECMC), it’s not obvious why. For reference, here is a visual representation of the two sets of directional wellbores:

A comparison of the directional wellbores for Cosslett (left) and Cosslett East (right).

Once the completion data for the Cosslett East wells becomes available, we’ll update this analysis.

The Plug & Abandon Process

This article is reprinted from the Winter 2018 issue of Elife.

In a recent tweet for the Erie Protectors (follow us @ErieProtectors), I mentioned that there are 13,103 producing wells in Weld County alone. Another 8,386 are shut in. Another 4,377 have been plugged & abandoned. Another 1,143 are currently being drilled.

Well statistics from the COGCC Daily Activity Dashboard, taken on January 16, 2018.

The numbers are staggering, especially when we get weekly reminders in the news of explosions, fires, spills, and releases of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at these facilities during their various stages of production.

This month, I’d like to focus on the last stage of production – the plug & abandon operation. OSHA has a concise definition of the process :

A well is abandoned when it reaches the end of its useful life or is a dry hole.

The casing and other equipment is removed and salvaged.
Cement plugs are placed in the borehole to prevent migration of fluids between the different formations.
The surface is reclaimed.

By the industry’s own admission, “end-of-well operations are often more difficult than initial well construction.” Let this be a cautionary tale told in three parts.

The Vessels Minerals site is 25 yards from the Aspen Ridge Preparatory School playground.

Crestone Peak Resources began plug & abandon operations at the Vessels Minerals site just east of Aspen Ridge Preparatory School on September 12, 2017. The same day, an observant resident filed a complaint with the COGCC about “an odor that is permeating from the site that can be smelled in the school parking lots.” When the COGCC sent out an inspector the following day, he had this to report in a notice of alleged violation (NOAV):

COGCC Staff also observed […] children playing in the playground and watching the rig crew’s operation, and volatile organic compounds (“VOCs”) visibly drifting toward the children in the playground.”

While Crestone took corrective action the same day and installed emission control equipment, they had every intention of venting VOCs 25 yards from a playground for 8 weeks while they conducted business as usual. The community was only made aware of the NOAV when an Erie Protector found it online almost two months later.

Lessons learned? If you see it, report it. The rules & regulations are inadequate to protect us. The industry has complete disregard for the communities in which they operate.

The “Oil & Gas Site” designation on the Erie Highlands Concept Plan

Our second tale comes from an idyllic suburban development just east of Grandview in Erie. The concept plan for Erie Highlands includes three innocuous “oil & gas site” designations in what appear to be pocket parks and open space. Imagine the surprise of recent owners of near-million dollar properties when fourteen characters on a pretty picture turned into a work over rig less than 100 yards from their back doors, especially when realtors had told them the wells were already plugged.

The workover rig at the William H. Peltier #2 site, originally completed in 1986.

Lessons learned? Do your homework. Self-serving realtors and developers have no interest in providing more than the minimal state-mandated disclosures about nearby oil & gas developments. They will pretend property values are unaffected and will deny community meetings to inform residents of O&G operations. When you’re looking for a new home, visit the COGCC online map at http://cogccmap.state.co.us/cogcc_gis_online/ and find out where historical, current, and future O&G development may impact you.

Saulcy 4-1 and surfacing liquid near well location.

Our final tale comes from Windsor, where in October 2017 “an old well that was plugged in 1984 began spilling oil on Colorado 60 east of U.S. 287.” Operators in the region were quick to respond to the well that had been drilled by an unknown operator in the 1920s or 1930s, but “an estimated 5 gallons to 6 gallons every minute” were spilling from the well.

Lessons learned? Oil & gas is forever. This blight upon our neighborhoods, open spaces, and environment has far-reaching implications. Operators come and go, but their impacts will remain long after we forget their names.