Regional coalition forms, wants stiffer regulations

A coalition of north metro governments is forming to ask the state to toward providing better regulatory safeguards against the potential health and safety hazards of oil and gas operations.

Longmont City Council members voted unanimously on Tuesday night to sign a letter, proposed and drafted by Broomfield, to Gov. John Hickenlooper and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

The letter says to the governor and the state regulatory agency “that we are united,” said Longmont councilwoman Polly Christensen. “It says to them, we’re concerned and we’re going to stay that way.”

Broomfield also has invited governments including Adams County, Lafayette, Boulder, Boulder County, Thornton, Westminster, Fort Collins, Louisville and Erie to cosign the letter.

State Rep. Mike Foote, the Lafayette Democrat who represents part of Longmont and has been unsuccessful in getting several oil-and-gas measures passed into law, encouraged the Longmont City Council to sign the regional governments’ letter.

“The letter is not the beall and end-all,” Foote said. But he said it would be a step toward getting area communities together to speak “with one voice” on oil and gas issues.

Foote said the bottom line is that local communities “should be able to say no” to oil and gas operations within their boundaries.

Longmont council members did not respond to the speakers who called on them Tuesday night to reimpose the voter-approved fracking ban that the state Supreme Court ruled in May 2016 to be illegal — even if, several of those speakers said, it’s done at the risk of getting another lawsuit filed against Longmont.

A number of the speakers also urged that the city adopt a “Community Bill of Rights” that they said would supercede any state or federal laws about things such as oil and gas exploration, if those activities pose hazards to a community’s health and safety.