The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission is set to discuss the proposed Extraction Oil and Gas Draco Pad project again on March 26, after the project was indefinitely paused in November, following pushback from Erie residents.

The Draco Pad project is expected to include 26 oil and gas wells in unincorporated Weld County near Erie town boundaries southeast of Erie Parkway and Weld County Road 5, according to a map from Civitas Resources Inc., the owner of Denver-based Extraction Oil & Gas. The wells would be drilled in Weld County, would go down more than 7,000 feet and then would turn horizontally and run west for about five miles to reach underneath parts of Erie and Boulder County, according to project materials.

In October, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission unanimously decided to put the proposed Draco Pad project discussion on hold until the company could provide additional analysis on other places that the oil and gas pads could be built.

In early March, representatives requested that the state commission discuss the project again — saying that they had evaluated alternative locations for drilling.

Extraction representatives did not respond to email or phone call requests for comment. According to a Civitas website, Extraction Oil and Gas workers reviewed four alternative locations for the drill pad in Erie and Boulder County but it found “no feasible locations that were allowed by local regulations.”

Residents can submit written comments to the state commission at tinyurl.com/DracoPad Hearing and enter docket number 240100004 for the Draco Pad Oil and Gas Development Plan.

Kate Burke, a senior assistant attorney at Boulder County, said horizontal drilling allows for wells to cross jurisdictional boundaries. Boulder County officials have authority over the surface facilities such as the wells. However, Burke said that in this case, everything that happens below the ground is under the jurisdiction of the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission.“No local government has any authority over what happens below the surface,” Burke said.

If a well is within 2,000 feet of a county’s borders, the local government is considered a “proximate local government” and has some authority over the project, according to at least one Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission document.

Erie Environmental Services Director David Frank said as a proximate local government, Erie has a limited role in the commission’s hearing of the pad.

Frank said Erie government officials are in a tough spot to try to ensure the health and safety of residents while working within the confines of not being the regulatory board that decides whether or not the pad gets approved.

“At no point in this process did Erie have the opportunity to approve or deny this,” Frank said.

Frank said the proposed site is expected to affect air quality for local residents.

The site is also expected to cause an increase in traffic on the surrounding roads.

Frank said that when he first heard about the Draco Pad project, the site was in a large empty field. However, a developer is now expected to construct the Westerly neighborhood on land adjacent to the wells.

The state commission hearing for the Draco Pad proposal was originally scheduled for October 2024.

Erie government officials worked with the developer building the Westerly neighborhood adjacent to the pad site to not request or grant certificates of occupancy for homes built nearest to the Draco Pad until either the project proposal was officially declined by the commission, or until Oct. 15, 2027, three years from when the original hearing date was set.

“Yes, there aren’t any homes in the area right now, but there will be,” Frank said.

Frank said that if the state commission approves the project, town government officials have some conditions of approval they would like to see met, including the date when drill rigs and heavy equipment must be moved off-site, as well as an acknowledgement from Extraction officials that they will monitor old plugged and abandoned wells.

its due diligence to investigate more protective locations that would not affect residents for the drill site.

“The volatile organic compounds do not stay within county or town district lines. The idea that only those people closest to the drilling site are those who are most impacted is just not true,” Carroll said.

”Christiaan van Woudenberg, an Erie resident, said the application for the Draco Pad project is legally sufficient to be approved by the commission, and Erie town staff and residents’ concerns about the health and safety of residents is not enough reason to stop the project from continuing.

“It’s a bit tragic that this application is at a site that is 100 feet outside of the municipal boundaries of Erie,” van Woudenberg said.

A condition of approval van Woudenberg would like to see is for Extraction workers to agree to take extra precautions to ensure the health and safety of the residents living closest to the drill pads.