After the hearing was delayed a week by the Erie Town Council due to an administrative issue with the publication of supporting documentation, the Redtail Ranch settlement agreement has been rescheduled for consideration at the Council’s December 16th, 2025 meeting.

Drums full of contaminated soil from the north end of the Redtail Ranch property await transport and disposal to a Nebraska incineration facility, December 2017. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors.

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.

There are 29 wells (of which 17 are low-producing) on property owned by Stratus Redtail Ranch just north of the Vista Ridge neighborhood in Erie, Colorado; the Redtail Ranch preliminary plat boundary is outlined in red.

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.

Looking south to the Vista Ridge neighborhood, an aerial view of the Pratt 29H-P168 pad as it was fracked in October 2017. The six wells and associated infrastructure of the SRC Pratt 34-29D pad that will be plugged and abandoned if the settlement agreement is approved are shown in the foreground. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors

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.

The SRC Pratt 24-29D location sits just south of the Waste Connections 29H-M168 pad. Photo taken in October 2017 as the Waste Connections wells were being fracked. Photo courtesy of Erie Protectors.

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?

Christiaan van Woudenberg has been an Erie resident for almost 20 years. He is the Principal Data Analyst for EcoCarto, a local environmental consulting company that specializes in data analysis and GIS mapping of Colorado oil & gas infrastructure, activities, and environmental impacts. Visit ecocarto.com for more information.

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The post The Redtail Ranch Oil & Gas Debacle: When Developers and Oil & Gas Operators Collide, Residents Lose appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The ECMC voted in favor of the plan after an Alternative Location Analysis showed other sites were infeasible 

The Draco Well Pad proposal from Civitas Resources, Inc. was approved by the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) 4-1 during the March 26 hearing, allowing the pad to be developed at the original site in unincorporated Weld County.

The ECMC met to hear and discuss the results of Civitas Resources’ Alternative Location Analysis, which the ECMC moved to require during a November 2024 hearing, specifically requesting that the applicant further investigate the viability of Alternative Location 4 within the Town of Erie.

However, an entirely coincidental but significant change near Alternative Location 4 created additional complications.

The Neuhauser landfill, located downgradient from Alternative Location 4, was declared a Superfund Site after two 55-gallon toxic drums were found there in 2017. The Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment (CDPHE) recently redesignated the landfill to include an environmental use restriction notice to prevent disruption in the area that could create health and environmental risks, said Tessa Sorensen, energy liaison for CDPHE.

Though the area outside the landfill is exempted, any stormwater or runoff flowing into the restricted area would be a violation. Alternative Location 4 was designed to divert runoff away from the landfill, but the proximity and natural downward gradient toward the landfill mean there is no way to ensure that runoff wouldn’t flow into the restricted area, according to a prehearing Drainage Memo from Civitas Resources.

The hearing then moved to witness David Frank, environmental director for the Town of Erie, which is the proximate local government for the originally proposed Draco Well Pad site. Frank reiterated the Town’s stance on the Draco Well Pad—namely, the 5-mile laterals that would be used to drill horizontally into Boulder County, the proximity to the developing Westerly Creek neighborhood and a proposed school site, and potential air quality impacts from greenhouse gas emissions associated with oil and gas drilling.

“Is this a project which should be rushed, thus increasing the likelihood of mistakes and the potential need to cut corners? Perhaps the first five-mile laterals in the state of Colorado should be attempted far from towns and families and under circumstances where the time needed to carefully test these uncharted waters is available,” Frank said during his remarks.

Frank also laid out three conditions of approval for the commission to consider:

1. That the Oil and Gas Development Plan include the execution of access agreements, transportation impact analysis, other local government permits, and the mitigation agreement reached between Extraction—a subsidiary of Civitas Resources—and Erie Land Company.
2. Incorporation of a previously abandoned well, a soil gas survey, and a monitoring agreement.
3. That drilling completions and other pre-production activities end no later than October 15, 2027, when Erie can no longer restrict issuance of certificates of occupancy for homes in the Westerly Creek neighborhood within 2,000 feet of Draco.

Pre-production poses a greater level of impact than other stages of operation, Frank noted, and the ECMC considers residences within 2,000 feet of an active drilling site to be at greater risk of adverse consequences. Civitas Resources has secured informed consent from the five currently occupied homes in Westerly Creek.

Representatives of Civitas Resources then presented the results of the Alternative Location Analysis and engagements with the Town of Erie after the November 2024 hearing. The analysis concluded that the alternative location is infeasible, citing CDPHE’s restriction notice and relevant Town of Erie Oil and Gas Siting Regulations that could make rezoning the district impossible, such as its proximity to residences, public parks, surface water bodies, and geological hazards.

Civitas Resources had proposed another location 1,000 feet south of Alternative Location 4, referred to as Alternative Location 4.1, which would comply with CDPHE’s restriction notice but had similar drawbacks to Alternative Location 4, including close proximity to the Vista Ridge neighborhood.

Civitas Resources outlined the benefits of the original Draco Well Pad: it aligns with zoning regulations in Weld County, requires fewer transportation miles, construction vehicles will navigate fewer intersections, supports dual-rig occupation, utilizes recycled water, has no downgradient water features nearby, and aligns with CDPHE recommendations and requirements.

They also reiterated the best management practices for the Draco Well Pad, including using recycled water, employing two simultaneous drilling rigs to expedite activity, installing three continuous air quality monitors, using electrified drilling rigs, and partially electrifying the completion fleet to reduce emissions.

The Oil and Gas Development Plan also includes a proposal to plug and abandon 22 legacy wells near occupied homes, which, according to Civitas Resources’ estimates, would create a net decrease in Volatile Organic Compound emissions by 3.82 tons per year.

“When you look at the cumulative impact side of things as well, they’re actually going to be reducing emissions and getting rid of some of these older legacy wells,” Commissioner Cross said during deliberation. “When you get rid of a lot of these older legacy wells, to me, that is perhaps the most crucial part of what’s being proposed here.”

Commissioner Messner was the only vote against the plan. He cited the proximity of the Westerly Creek neighborhood and an area about 1,500 feet north of the well pad that was identified and deeded to the St. Vrain Valley School District as evidence that the plan does not meet ECMC’s standards to adequately protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources.

“There’s a point where oil and gas development and subdivisions are colliding with one another, and I think this is a really good example of where that’s happening,” Messner said. “We’re starting to see it more often, and it’s certainly a challenging situation for all sides.”

Civitas Resources laid out a development schedule that would break ground in May 2026, complete drilling in March 2027, bring wells online in October 2027, and begin reclamation in December 2027.

This schedule would align with the Town of Erie’s conditions for approval. However, Civitas Resources has an official end date of May 2028 due to delays in the hearing process and outstanding requirements, including paving a half-mile of county road for construction vehicles accessing the Front Range Regional Landfill. The ECMC has requested that Civitas make reasonable efforts to conclude operations by December 2027.

Civitas Resources will hold two virtual town halls as development moves forward. Residents can sign up for notifications from the Town of Erie here.

“While the Town of Erie is disappointed with the Commission’s decision, the Town is committed to protecting the health, safety, and welfare of its residents and will continue to do so irrespective of this ruling,” read a March 26 message from the Town of Erie. “The Town of Erie is grateful for the commission’s acknowledgement of present and future impacts of the Draco Pad and its inclusion of the following conditions of approval to better protect the current and future residents of Erie.”

Art courtesy of Erie Protectors.

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The post Draco Well Pad proposal approved 4-1 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.