Broomfield City Council approves $253K settlement with Extraction

The city and county of Broomfield and Extraction Oil and Gas reached a settlement agreement of $253,000 regarding alleged noise violations during Tuesday night’s council meeting.

The agreement was unanimously approved.

According to the resolution memo, Broomfield issued seven alleged noise violations to Extraction between Nov. 1, 2021, and Dec. 9, 2021. Extractions operator agreement contains “best management practices” (BMP), which outline noise mitigation, and Broomfield claims in at least six of the seven are violations of those BMPS agreed upon in 2017. City and County Attorney Nancy Rodgers said Extraction denies these violations.

On Dec. 14, 2021, the city issued Extraction a letter which “noted that the noise mitigation measures that Extraction had in place were insufficient and the City believed more was necessary to mitigate noise otherwise Extraction would continue to be in breach of the Operator Agreement, specifically BMP 31.”

On Jan. 6, Extraction and city officials held a phone call in an attempt to resolve the violations, as well as map out future noise mitigation measures. Despite Extraction’s denial, the parties were able to create a settlement agreement.

According to the settlement agreement, Extractions obligations include the payment of $253,000, which was figured by “using the costs for noise monitoring for November, December, and the nine months of operations expected in 2022,” as well as implementation of specific noise mitigation measures.

The cost of the noise monitoring system is approximately $23,000 per month, according to the city.

Those measures include additional temporary sound walls around certain noise emitting sources, mitigation of vibration and sound resulting from sand box transport, an increase number of hydraulic pumps used during fracturing in order to reduce pump load, and locating additional 32foot sound walls and straw bales, which are fire treated and inspected by the fire department. Some of these measures are already in place, but this resolution would make them a contractual obligation.

The city’s obligations in exchange for Extractions measures are agreeing to a limited release of claims. According to the memo, this release only applies to legal claims that could have been asserted by the city because of the noise violations that were the subject of the notices. This does not remove the city’s ability to take legal action on future violations, according to Rodgers.

The memo states that Broomfield anticipates depositing the $253,000 payment into the city county general fund.