Colorado
Will Colorado approve fracking plan proposed near Aurora communities, reservoir?
AURORA, Colo. — Colorado’s oversight agency for oil and gas operations will decide this week whether to approve a sprawling fracking plan strongly opposed by community members.
Civitas, one of Colorado’s biggest oil and gas operators, hopes to drill more than 160 wells east of the Aurora Reservoir, neighborhoods and schools. The proposal is known as the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan, named for the state-owned prairie lands where the operator wants to install its well pads.
The plan has sparked worries among many community members living nearby. To counter it, they created a group called Save the Aurora Reservoir (STAR) on Facebook. Almost 1,800 people have joined their group.
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In a first for Colorado, the community group convinced the state’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) to hold local hearings for community members to share their concerns. The hearings began last week and will end this Wednesday.
In those hearings, the ECMC decided to recognize the community group STAR as an “affected” party, allowing them to testify despite the operator’s objections.
Hundreds of community members have attended the hearings, in person and online. Their testimony has included concerns about potential health risks and environmental harms if the drilling plans are approved.
Kevin Chan, who lives near the proposed wells and helped create STAR, said their top concerns are potential air pollution, water contamination and proximity to a superfund site.
“We are really just striving for one thing, and that is to keep our community safe,” Chan said. But the state’s process for reviewing the plan has been challenging for community members to understand and participate in, he said.
“What people don’t understand about these types of projects is that they’re very large, and if they come into your community,” Chan said, the operator has vast financial and legal resources to navigate the state’s requirements.
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“We are the underdog in this fight,” he said. But “it’s better to try to do something than not do anything at all.”
He said it’s frightening to know a decision is looming.
“I would hope that [the state commissioners] see the flaws in the plans and they deny it as is,” he said.
Dozens of environmental groups in Colorado also oppose the proposal. They sent a letter to Governor Jared Polis urging him to encourage the state commissioners to reject it.
Civitas filed the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan with the state two years ago. Since then, the operator has made changes requested by the ECMC and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which said it was concerned that fracking surrounding and underneath a nearby superfund site “could lead to a significant unintended release of hazardous substances.”
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If the state commission approves the proposal, it would be the fourth comprehensive area plan approved in Colorado. The operator would still be required to file applications for each of its well sites. However, the state has approved all previous well-site applications by CAP recipients.
Civitas is proposing to drill the wells on the Lowry Ranch, owned by Colorado’s State Land Board, which leases its land and mineral rights to raise funds for public schools.
Civitas already operates on the Lowry Ranch. In 2020, It acquired an existing lease for several wells from the energy giant ConocoPhillips and included those operating wells in its proposal to drill more wells on the property.
Most of the funds raised by the State Land Board, about 80%, come from oil and gas production. Over the last 15 years, the State Land Board has collected $1.5 billion for public schools from oil and gas operations.
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Civitas estimates its proposed fracking on the Lowry Ranch could generate about $640 million for public schools in the first 15 years of operations, including both royalties paid to the State Land Board and property tax revenues, according to a statement provided to Denver7.
Civitas also estimates the Lowry Ranch operations could help fund Arapahoe County more broadly with more than $400 million in public revenues.
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Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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Late Thursday morning, a house fire spreading into the nearby woods in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon prompted officials to issue a pre-evacuation order to nearby residents. Firefighters have since brought the blaze under control.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, a house fire broke out around 11:30 a.m. in the 10600 block of Ralston Creek Road in Golden Gate Canyon, located around 25 miles west of Denver. The fire then began to spread into the nearby trees and grass.
Multiple fire units quickly responded to the scene, and the JCSO issued a pre-evacuation notice to all residents within a three-mile radius, warning them to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.
At 12:34 p.m., the sheriff’s office announced that the fire is no longer spreading and the burn area has been contained to less than an acre. A photo shared by JCSO shows a structure nearly completely destroyed by the fire.
Pre-evacuation orders were lifted around 1 p.m.
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