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.
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.
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.
In 2019 and 2020, Extraction Oil & Gas drilled 82 wells as a part of a Comprehensive Drilling Plan (CDP). Data from the ECMC.
This map depicts the existing oil & gas infrastructure in and around the City and County of Broomfield. While the southwestern portion of Broomfield lies outside of the Denver Julesburg Basin, there are still 70 producing wells at 25 active locations, and 144 plugged and abandoned wells that will require maintenance and inspection forever.
As a part of a Comprehensive Development Plan (CDP) negotiated with the City and County of Broomfield, Extraction Oil & Gas drilled 82 wells along the north edge of Broomfield in 2019 and 2020, during which time 299 complaints were filed with the ECMC regarding noise, odor, and other issues. As shown in the inset maps at bottom right, 12 of the 82 wells are in a “suspended operation” state, meaning the wells were only drilled to a depth of 1,600 ft rather than their full depth and were not hydraulically fractured (the remaining 70 wells were drilled to an average depth of 7,760 ft.) In April 2025 Form 5B filings, Extraction says it “intends to utilize the wellbore[s] in the future.”
Also shown at the top of the map is the recently approved Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP), where 26 5-mile wellbore laterals will be drilled across Erie and into Boulder County.
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.
Below is a transcript of Chair Robbins’ testimony during the March 26, 2025 deliberations on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). Please excuse any transcription errors.
Chair Robbins: Thanks to all my fellow Commissioners for the deliberative thoughts. I think if anything this should demonstrate once again to the 139 people listening in that we really work hard to make the appropriate determination for the state of Colorado with regard to these sorts of things. I too am in favor of the application for the reasons as articulated by my fellow Commissioners. I believe it addresses the avoid, minimize, and mitigate hierarchy. I appreciate the best management practices and I too want to echo Commissioner Akerman’s points that I think this process has demonstrated to us and to the communities we serve the opportunity to ensure that even relevant approximate local governments can have an ability to be at the table and I think that’s what we’ve done here.
Below is a transcript of Commissioner Oeth’s testimony during the March 26, 2025 deliberations on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). Please excuse any transcription errors.
Commissioner Oeth: This is a really tough one, and I really appreciate my fellow Commissioners Cross and Messner starting us out and really doing a very thorough job of laying out so many of the complicated factors and considerations on all sides of this. This really does highlight the really challenging nature of this application—both the things that are really positive about it and those that are potentially concerning about it, and all those things that we have to take into consideration. So thank you for that.
Below is a transcript of Commissioner Ackerman’s testimony during the March 26, 2025 deliberations on the Draco Oil & Gas Development Plan (OGDP). Please excuse any transcription errors.
Commissioner Ackerman: I appreciate my fellow Commissioners and their thoughts. I appreciate all the significant efforts on all sides, as has been expressed by others on this application. I particularly appreciate the thoughtful consideration of local jurisdictions, the staff, the director, and my fellow Commissioners.
I’ll be relatively brief as well. This application is a good illustration of why our deliberative process is so important to addressing ECMC’s mission, which is really simple to understand but complex to execute: protecting public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. That’s the purpose of the Act, and the method of executing that is generally promulgating and enforcing rules pursuant to that mission.
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.
