By Dan Karpiel
The Surveyor
In a virtual work session Tuesday night, the Berthoud Board of Trustees heard presentations on oil and gas regulations in town as well as details regarding a potential ordinance pertaining to the application of commercial pesticide and herbicides.
Berthoud Community Development Director, Curt Freese, presented the board with information town staff had in relation to Colorado Senate Bill 181, passed in 2019, which expanded local authority on oil and gas extraction operations. In a nearly 90-minute question and answer session, Freese and Town Administrator Chris Kirk offered explanations and details to the questions proffered by the seven town trustees.
Since SB 181 became law, Berthoud passed a moratorium on allowing any further oil and gas extraction operations to take place within town limits and it appeared quite clear Tuesday evening that a number of the trustees are not at all eager to relax the moratorium.
Berthoud’s current oil and gas regulations date to 2017 and, following the passage of SB 181, it was reported that only a handful of localities have passed further requirements beyond the existing statutes. Freese pointed to Adams and Broomfield counties for guidance regarding potential new regulations; he further added that Weld County is “very pro-oil and gas,” that thus sought aforementioned Broomfield and Adams counties as examples, saying he “felt it was not the goal of the board to make oil and gas easier to permit.”
Following Freese’s presentation, which was detailed and informative, questions abounded from all seven trustees regarding everything from the potential for requiring the use of electric-powered equipment to help mitigate noise, to the location of underground lines, the aesthetics surrounding operation sites and air and water quality monitoring.
Several questions were posed as “what ifs,” regarding the potential for accidents and bankruptcies by operating companies; town officials were not eager to get into hypotheticals saying rather that measures already exist for such potentials that could arise from extraction operations. On several lines of questioning, both Freese and Kirk admitted would be better answered by town attorneys, who were not present for the work session.
Kirk made the point that, as purely an economic consideration on behalf of the oil and gas firms, creating any significant number of new wells in Berthoud town limits is not likely. “It’s much easier to develop oil and gas in Weld (County) than in Larimer (County) or in Berthoud,” Kirk said adding, “much of what we have proposed to you has been land-use related.”
Given the seriousness of the issue, the board decided, this would not be a matter on which any decisions will be made in the very-near term; all agreed more information is needed and community feedback needs to be heard. Long-term decisions will be made after greater evaluations are done, it was decided, and the Town of Superior was pointed out as a potential model for…
Read More: Town board work session examines oil and gas regulations, pesticide
