COUNCIL APPROVES OIL AND GAS MORATORIUM
Move doesn’t apply to existing applications
Despite the threat of legal action against the city, Loveland City Council voted 7 to 2 on Tuesday to put a six-month moratorium on new oil and gas development within city limits.
The item was added to the agenda by Loveland Mayor Jacki Marsh, who said she has long had the city’s climate policies on her list of priorities, but didn’t have enough support from other council members until the recent turnover in the 2023 municipal election.
Per the terms of the new moratorium, the city will stop accepting applications or issuing permits for new oil and gas development until June 1, 2024, or until city staff can revise the current regulations to conform with state regulations established with the passage of Senate Bill 19-181.
Marsh argued that revising the rules should be a straightforward matter that staff would be able to turn around in a matter of weeks, not months, by using Larimer County’s recent update as a model.
“I’m not proposing anything long term, like it’s going take forever,” she said. “I think we could very quickly update our rules and regs.”
The mayor clarified with the City Attorney that the moratorium would not have an impact on the city’s only pending oil and gas development project, known as East (CE) well pad site, a development proposed by MRG, LLC, a subsidiary of Mcwhinney. Plans call for 15 horizontal fracking wells in east Loveland, north of U.S. 34 and west of Larimer County Road 3.
The vote came on the eve of a public hearing by the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission for the MRG project. On Nov. 20, the ECMC director’s office issued a recommendation of conditional approval for the site, but a final decision will be rendered by the commission on Wednesday.
The city conditionally approved the East (CE) project back in August, but is waiting for the outcome of the hearing to issue a permit.
Julia Rhine, an attorney for MRG and Mcwhinney, preemptively contacted City Council to caution it against approving the moratorium and arguing that it is “illegal, unnecessary and unreasonable,”
“… It is so well-established that new regulations cannot apply to approved permits that all of the many local government moratoria in the wake of Senate Bill 19-181,” Rhine’s letter ready in part, “have applied only to the acceptance and processing of new oil and gas development permits and never to activity authorized under approved permits.”
Noting that the MRG project is the only current oil and gas development in Loveland, Rhine’s letter also questioned whether the mayor was singling out Mcwhinney in her actions and suggested that the moratorium is targeted and, therefore, illegal.
During council discussion, most members were supportive of the mayor’s proposal, though some, including Councilor Jon Mallo, questioned whether a moratorium was needed to revise the city’s regulations. He ended up voting in favor of the motion.
Voting against it was Councilor Dana Foley, who said that new wells aren’t as dangerous as old abandoned wells. Also voting against it was Councilor Pat Mcfall, who said that he supported reviewing the city’s regulations, but did not support a moratorium.