by Frank Smith, WCC Director of Organizing

Colorado has over 48,000 active oil or gas wells, and development is getting closer to people.Since 2009, over 1,300 oil & gas wells have been approved within 1,000 feet of a home, school or other building.

The Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) is holding a series of meetings to explore the topic of “setbacks,” or the distance between an oil & gas facility and any occupied structures.   All summer long, agencies, industries, local governments, organizations and citizens will hear about the pros and cons of moving rigs further away from homes.  

The stakeholder groups participating thus far include:land developers, oil & gas companies and trade associations, local governments, conservation organizations, and citizens groups, including Western Colorado Congress.  

WCC, its members and friends are working for greater distance between rig and house, while the oil & gas industry and land developers are resistant to creating a larger “no drill zone” around buildings.  Current standards allow oil & gas to be 150-350 ft from homes, schools, hospitals and barns.  That’s too close for comfort.

For years, WCC has pressed for increased setbacks as a common sense way of reducing risk to public health and impacts to quality of life.  At issue is the balance between public health and private property rights.  Land and mineral owners have the right to develop or access their property, but the public has the right to health, safety and welfare.  A split estate land owner (someone who owns the surface, but not the underlying minerals), also has the right to quality of life, clean air and water.

Oil & gas development’s impacts on health are not well-known, either.  But new information points to the wisdom in health-based standards, moving oil & gas facilities away from homes, and investing in air quality monitoring.  The Draft Battlement Mesa Health Impact Assessment, for example, encourages at least ¼ mile setbacks from homes.  Another Garfield County-based study offers ½ mile as a safe distance.  

Early in the meetings, though, state regulators confessed current standards are not health-based.  Rather than considering cancer risks from toxic emissions spewing out of oil & gas locations, the current law was written so rigs wouldn’t fall onto houses, barns or other structures.  

We’re excited about the chance to move rigs back, but we’re also cautiously optimistic.  In 2008, for instance, Colorado said it would reconsider its rules on setbacks.  It has taken four years for the stakeholder group to convene, and at that glacial pace, thousands of more permits could be issued next to homes before changes are made.