Colorado regulators approved a plan Tuesday to drill new oil and gas wells in the state’s third-largest city, in a decision that served as a test case for the state’s first-in-the-nation fracking law.
The Energy and Carbon Management Commission, which oversees oil and gas production, approved a proposal by oil company SM Energy to drill in Aurora. The Sunlight Long Well project site would be located about 3,200 feet from nearby homes and 3,000 feet from the Aurora Reservoir.
The approval came against the urging of a group called Save the Aurora Reservoir, which leaned on a 2019 law that gave communities a bigger role in the decision-making process for new drilling and required state regulators to consider health and safety. That law, generally referred to by its bill number S.B. 181, was viewed as a landmark response to the drilling resurgence boosted by fracking technology.
The Energy and Carbon Management Commission has considered dozens of drilling proposals since the law was enacted. But the Sunlight Long project has attracted outsize attention, especially because community members were able to raise funds to get legal representation and intervene in the proceeding rather than simply lodging their concerns as public comments.
