State regulators have approved the controversial Draco Pad oil and gas project near Erie, allowing Civitas Resources to move forward with drilling that will extend more than two miles into Boulder County.
The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) voted 4-1 in favor of the project after months of public opposition and a temporary pause over safety concerns and questions about alternative location.
The well pad, proposed by Civitas subsidiary Extraction Oil & Gas, will be located in unincorporated Weld County. It sits near Erie’s under-construction Westerly neighborhood. According to Westerly’s developer, Southern Land, 72 homes will sit within 2,000 feet of the site only after drilling is completed. Boulder County officials and local residents have warned the project poses environmental and health risks, including ozone pollution and the potential disturbance of aging legacy wells beneath nearby homes.
A new peer-reviewed study from the Colorado School of Public Health found that children living near oil and gas wells in Colorado face significantly higher risks of developing leukemia, with elevated risks extending up to eight miles from active sites. The findings raise concerns that the state’s current 2,000-foot setback requirement may not be enough to protect children’s health.
The commission paused the proposal last November, citing Civitas’ failure to adequately evaluate an alternative site. But after further review, the company determined that location was no longer viable — primarily because of uncertainty around rezoning and a newly imposed environmental use restriction from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The restriction, aimed at protecting the nearby capped Neuhauser Landfill, complicates future development on that land.
Although state officials said the timing of the restriction was unrelated to the Draco Pad proposal, it ultimately cleared the way for drilling at the original site. The commission concluded that Civitas had met the state’s mitigation standards and lifted the stay, despite continued objections from the community.
Civitas must complete all pre-production work by Oct. 15, 2027.
Correction, April 7, 2025 4:32 pm: A previous version of this story stated that 72 homes will sit within 2,000 feet of the proposed well pad once completed. According to Westerly, this will be the case only after drilling is finished.
I get this. My mom died of leukemia when she was 38 yo. and I was 16, exposed to aspirable plutonium particulates from the biggest fire at Rocky Flats in ’57, downwind when we lived briefly in Denver, before moving to Boulder. Another disastrous decision for public health.
Sounds like a bait and switch with the Draco site. Duplicitous. Neuhauser ought to sue them. These arbitrary decisions offered for alternate sites are land use decisions for the developer to navigate, not to be left to Civitas/Extraction. It becomes a chicken or the egg issue and begs of who determines zoning regulations from the start.
What transpires is tied to catastrophic consequences for real people’s lives that are unconscionable, and right here in Boulder County.
Drill baby, drill….and sorry not sorry if you kids get leukemia. Once again, the state bulldozes right over valid concerns even as an unassailable study shows just how woefully inadequate their current setback requirements are not to mention just how far behind the research CDPHE stauchly remains. This really highlights just how captured both the ECMC and Gov. Polis are to oil & gas, as one hand washes the other to always prioritize the (unaccountable) extraction industry profits above worsening air quality and public health…because nevermind, of course, how many thousand abandoned/fugitive wells the state are also expected to pay the remediation costs of. So we the taxpayers are literally subsidizing the pollution that’s harming our environment.
Ohhh and what a convenient time for our illustrious Commissioners to defund its emissions program; all over their manufactured worry about its infinitesimal cost to the county budget (.001%) among their staunch scientific illiteracy.
Who can fight the oil/gas industry? Even CU Boulder in their pockets/
Bill, Integrity over profit! You grew up here!
No stops for oil n gas. Not even in a city where the median home value is like 700k. Newly elected Mayor with oil n gas ties.