Oil and Gas Development

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Huzer
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Oil and Gas Development

Postby Huzer » Wed Oct 25, 2017 9:14

I'm a bit dismayed in my current housing location. The City and County of Broomfield last night passed a new MOU with Extraction O&G, basically after being threatened with additional development if the offer wasn't accepted. What's done is done. Now, I went from a residential neighborhood with some retail development to an industrial neighborhood. The company said to expect yearly truck traffic of between 40-50,000 trucks on our streets. There will now be 133 new oil wells fracked (84 in Broomfield, and 49 in Adams County....Broomfield considered it a "win" that 49 wells were basically moved a few hundred feet, so they can say they aren't in Broomfield.) within less than a quarter of a mile from my son's school over the next 5 years. Add in another half mile, and that includes my house, too. The wells will go on 6 pads, so we'll have those lovely giant sound walls built up and surrounding us until at least 2022. It sucks that energy development basically has eminent domain, with very little repercussion if something goes wrong. It's a case of easier to pay the fines instead of doing the right thing. A $1000 fine for a multimillion dollar project is nothing. State laws that allow for forced pooling for mineral rights owners, well that sucks too.

There is another fracking pad near us, over in Erie, about 2 miles away. On a daily basis, we can smell the fracking chemicals. Thankfully, we're out of earshot of it, but many others aren't. I've watched the property values in that neighborhood plummet. I know because we looked there before purchasing our current house. Similar houses, especially those closer to the well sites, are about $100k cheaper than they were 2 years ago. Now what's going to happen to my property value?

My plan all along when I bought this house was to live here for at least the duration of my son's school career. A large part of me now wishes we had moved to North Carolina when we were seriously considered it a couple of years ago.

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Shadowden
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Re: Oil and Gas Development

Postby Shadowden » Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:14

Huzer,
I'm battling with some O&G developers right now. It is not fun. As you say, they have a lot of power and are used to bullying people around. Unfortunately, a lot in government look at the price tag. If Broomfield owns the mineral interests under the city, they are looking at up to billions of dollars through development. If they turn around and put that money into the community, it could be great. Unfortunately, it seems like government entities bleed money.

REalistically, now would not be a horrible time to move before the effects are fully realized. Pretty much anything north of Denver is going to see some oil activity.

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Huzer
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Re: Oil and Gas Development

Postby Huzer » Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:14

Oh, we won’t be moving. Regardless of O&G, this area will be 100% developed soon. Chase data center, a new IKEA, outlets, Amazon fulfillment center.

Part of the MOU, to limit the amount of wells, Broomfield gave away a significant amount of their royalty to any mineral rights they owned. The prior MOU was poorly written, I’m sure this one is equally poorly written and has enough loopholes where any limitations that are in it can probably be easily subverted.

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Ranger
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Re: Oil and Gas Development

Postby Ranger » Thu Oct 26, 2017 9:14

Heard about this on CPR this morning. Absolutely ridiculous. Hopefully some good comes of it.


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