Loveland likely to extend moratorium on oil and gas drilling

LOVELAND — The Loveland City Council, in a study session at which formal votes can’t be taken, directed city staff by consensus how to proceed in creating a process for gathering public input in order to revise the city’s oil and gas regulations. 

It also seemed willing to extend an existing moratorium on new drilling applications past June 1 by 90 days in order to let that public process play out.

But the die may already be cast in terms of what individual council members will support in regard to regulations that have yet to be written.

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“I’m going for ‘most strict’ in all the categories,” Mayor Jacki Marsh said in reference to a chart listing how Loveland’s regulations stack up against those in Boulder, Broomfield and Larimer counties. She said she wants maximum setbacks and suggested 3,000 feet distance between wells and homes, which was 1,000 feet more than what staff indicated might be included in new regulations. She also said she wants all drilling applications to go to the Planning Commission and City Council, not through an administrative approval process.

Current regulations permit oil and gas developers to receive administrative approval of their applications if they agree to restrictions above those required by state law.

Meanwhile, council member Steve Olson questioned the need for new regulations. “I don’t support extending the moratorium. I question the necessity of having regulations more strict than (what) the county (requires). I support matching the county, but not beyond.”

As staff laid out the proposed process, which will include public meetings and an online process to gather input, drafting new rules and exposing those new rules to the council and public at official public hearings, it noted that the city has just one active drilling site — on the east side of the Kinston neighborhood in Centerra. Most oil and gas activity potentially affecting the city is not in the city but in the city’s growth management area in the county. Those drill sites are subject to county rules, not the city.

“What’s to stop operators from going into Weld County and drilling horizontally,” Olson asked. If that were to occur, then Weld County would derive any revenue from those wells instead of the city, he said. 

Council member Laura Light-Kovacs said she is in favor of greater restrictions in those areas where the city can write more-stringent regulations, “especially when it comes to air quality monitoring. I’d like the monitoring to be where the oil wells would be,” not in locations distant from the wells. 

Council member Dana Foley said he wants to see the data. “There’s no data to support (new) ‘reasonable and necessary’ regulations,” he said. He asked for comparisons of air quality not with counties but with communities such as Greeley and Rifle, where drilling activity is more intense.

Council member Jon Mallo said that despite new, stricter regulations, “I don’t see this … moving the needle on the (air quality) nonattainment area.” Loveland, he noted, sits in the area north of Denver where air quality regularly fails to meet federal standards. Because there’s little drilling activity now in the city, further regulations won’t help improve air quality, he said.

Council member Andrea Samson concurred. “What are we trying to solve,” she asked. If new regulations are approved, “they need to be relevant to us” and take into account community members who work in the oil and gas industry along with those seeking restrictions.

Dr. James Danforth, a retired Loveland doctor, said during public comments that physicians have concerns about air quality in the community, but acknowledged that drilling activity in Weld County may be having a greater impact.  

Brett Limbaugh, the city’s development services director, said oil and gas resources underlie much of the community. “The actual resource goes west to the Devil’s Backbone, but that isn’t a preferred area for operators. And that’s residential, so we don’t anticipate any drilling in the west,” he said. Instead, drilling activity would be most likely in the southeast part of the community and the county beyond it.

Matt Surna, a special oil and gas counsel hired by the city to help prepare new regulations, said  noise and dust will likely be the biggest concern of residents, and he suggested that regulations focus on those areas.