Critics: Oil driller hired guards to exclude them from meetings
Denver-based Crestone now promises to hold a telephone-only meeting Nov. 2 so more residents can weigh in on drilling.
Crestone Peak Resources promised state regulators it would hold public meetings with residents affected by the company’s plans to drill at least 180 wells on the eastern edge of Boulder County, but public officials and activists say the company purposefully excluded many critics of the drilling plans from those meetings.
In the face of mounting criticism, the company on Monday promised to hold another, telephone-only meeting on Nov. 2 so more concerned residents can weigh in.
Denver-based Crestone barred from the previous meetings individuals the company didn’t invite to attend, critics point out. The company sent invitations to about 140 parcel owners within a half mile of the proposed drilling sites, leaving many who own property located outside that half-mile distance feeling they weren’t given a chance to participate.
The invitation-only caveat almost tripped up two state legislators when they tried to attend the company’s meeting on Wednesday night. Sen. Matt Jones, a Democrat from Louisville, and Rep. Mike Foote, a Democrat from Lafayette, had to wait about five minutes with a private security guard and also a Boulder County sheriff’s deputy providing backup before a Crestone official relented and allowed them to attend the meeting inside a church.
Other residents who wanted to attend, however, were turned away. A second “telephone town hall meeting” on Thursday also was invitation only, and the company screened the questions, according to participants. Crestone officials said about 60 people attended the first meeting and about 50 attended the telephone conference.
Jones, who is running to become a Boulder County commissioner, used his telephone to record the initial rebuff Wednesday and posted the video on his Facebook page.
“On Wednesday Crestone Peak held a meeting, but it was anything but a public meeting,” Jones wrote in his Facebook page. “Rep. Mike Foote and I watched in shock as Crestone Peakrestrictedaccessbymaking it an exclusive gathering, complete with hired muscle aimed at keeping out folks who didn’t have an invitation of some kind.”
The ruckus over the adequacy of Crestone’s public outreach is occurring amid heightened tensions over oil and gas drilling and residential development in the Front Range, which are both booming. A fatal house explosion in Firestone in April linked to a severed natural gas pipeline has reignited a debate over the proximity of drilling to housing and schools.
The two meetings were part of what Crestone negotiated with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates drilling in the state, when the company filed what’s called a Comprehensive Drilling Plan with the COGCC for 12 square miles near the intersection of U.S. 287 and Colorado 52 between Longmont and Lafayette. It’s the first such Comprehesive Drilling Plan a company has filed for the Front Range.
The COGCC is scheduled to hold hearings in March on Crestone’s proposal, which calls for six proposed drilling pad sites in Boulder County. Four of the six proposed sites are on Boulder County Open Space. The company expects to be producing oil and gas until after 2050 from the sites.
Bridget Ford, a spokeswoman for Crestone, said that although Crestone was pleased with the previous participation, it decided to hold an additional “telephone town hall meeting” on Nov. 2. All property owners in the 12 square miles of the Comprehensive Drilling Plan will be invited to attend the Nov. 2 telephone meeting, Ford said.
Nanner Fisher, who lives in the 12 square miles that encompass the drilling plan, said she showed up Wednesday even though she wasn’t invited to attend the Crestone meeting but didn’t try to go inside the church where the meeting was held.
Still, Fisher, who has protested the company’s plans during Boulder County commission meetings, said Crestone’s security guard came up to her car and asked for her name. When she gave it to him, the guard told her she would have to leave the church parking lot or face arrest. A deputy sheriff also told her to leave, she said.
“I am very upset,” Fisher said. “I have been blacklisted and I have never done anything wrong. All I have done is ask questions, which are legitimate questions, and I would like to have some legitimate answers.”