Each week, we talk with our colleagues at The Colorado Sun about the stories they're following. This time,Sun Editor Lance Benzel joined us to discuss oil and gas leaks holding up housing development along the Front Range and the latest about the state's leading Colorado River conservation program.
Erie and Longmont have residential developments that are stalled because oil and gas wells that were plugged decades ago have started leaking.
In Longmont, the Diamond G Concrete Company had a plan to build houses in what used to be an alfalfa field near a Costco store. That plan was disrupted when the developers found crude oil bubbling up from the ground in the middle of the project site.
“It turns out that the oil is from a well that had been plugged in the 1990s and that started to leak somewhere along the line, but wasn't discovered until the land was being inspected for this project,” Benzel said.
In Erie, Oakwood Homes says it's unable to develop a plant because of a well that was also plugged about three decades ago, and that now has begun leaking methane into the soil.
“This is a reminder that there are nearly 22,000 plugged and abandoned oil and gas wells in the Front Range,” Benzel said. “They're located in just nine counties. And 3/4 of these wells are in Weld County.”
In addition to being obstacles to development, the leaking wells carry environmental risks.
“Some of these wells can be fine for decades and then start leaking suddenly because of corrosion and degrading cement,” Benzel said.
In conversation with The Sun, Anthony Ingraffea, a retired Cornell University engineering professor, described these wells as ‘ticking time bombs.’”
So what can be done?
Colorado started an orphan well program in 1990. It’s dedicated to plugging and cleaning up abandoned wells. That program is financed by fees and bonds levied on the oil and gas industry. In fiscal year 2021, the program spent about $5.4 million plugging wells. The State of Colorado is also about to receive about $25 million in federal funds from the Department of Interior to deal with orphan wells.
The developers in both Erie and Longmont have asked the state to clean up these wells as part of the orphan well program. The State Energy and Carbon Management Commission has approved a cleanup request for the well in Longmont, but it has not yet weighed in on the request concerning the well in Erie.
Benzel also discussed a state program that pays farmers and ranchers to not water their fields. The program has underperformed and so far saved about 2,700 acre feet of Colorado River water. That may sound like a lot, but Benzel put the number into perspective.
“That's about enough to supply 10,500 homes for a year, which in the grand scheme of things, is a really tiny amount,” Benzel told KUNC.
The federal government has said that Colorado River users must collectively cut up to 4 million acre feet of water use per year because of ongoing drought conditions.
