Longmont strikes $3 million deal to end drilling in city limits

Longmont’s City Council on Tuesday gave unanimous approval to a $3 million agreement that city officials have said will essentially end oil and gas drilling within city limits.

Council members defended the proposed pact with TOP Operating Co. and Cub Creek Energy, as the best the city could achieve under current state laws and court rulings that limiting local control over oil and gas operations. The deal will be up for final council action on May 22,

Under the agreement, Longmont would pay Lakewood-based TOP Operating $3 million to plug and abandon eight active wells and remove flow and gathering lines associated with them, give up 11 future drilling sites and abandon 80 potential well permits, and never again drill from within city limits.

Highlands Ranch-based Cub Creek will relinquish any right to drill inside Longmont city limits or on city-owned property — if the state approves Cub Creek’s proposed well location in Weld County northeast of Union Reservoir.

Longmont owns some oil and gas mineral rights and would lease them to Cub Creek, using royalties from those leases to make payments to TOP.

This agreement “is the only way that Union (Reservoir) doesn’t get Brian Bagley said. “It’s away from it.”

Councilwoman Polly Christensen, who supported the Longmont fracking ban the Colorado Supreme Court overturned in 2016, said the city is limited by that ruling and other state laws about what it can permit and what it can prohibit.

Christensen called the agreement “a very nuanced attempt to get the best that we can.”

Until state laws are changed, Councilman Aren Rodriguez said, “it’s important that we move this process forward.”

Nearly 20 people spoke in opposition to the deal Tuesday night. Many of those speakers called for disclosure of the details of negotiations the city staff has had with TOP and Cub Creek. They also wanted to know what the staff reported to the council during executive session reviews of the status of those negotiations.

Many also urged the council to schedule a public forum before proceeding with the agreement with the drillers.

“We deserve an unbiased description of the pros and cons of this deal in a public forum,” said Dylan Podel, who lives in southwest Longmont.

Kristen Burris, who lives in one of the city’s historic neighborhoods, said allowing even horizontal drilling deep underneath city-owned properties would be “a misuse of our open space lands.”