When Keith Huck, an Adams County senior oil and gas inspector, walks onto a well pad he looks, listens and sniffs. There is a lot to keep his eyes, ears and nose busy as the county has become the fastest-growing oil producer in the state.
Since 2017, oil production has grown 15-fold as the county became Colorado’s second-biggest producer churning out 12.8 million barrels in 2023, with some companies still filing December numbers.
Adams County remains a distant second to Weld County, where the output is 10 times as large, but since 2021 Adams County production is up about 58% and Weld’s has dropped by about 6%, according to state data.
All this growth has come even as the county adopted local oil and gas regulations stiffer than the state’s and launched its own oil and gas inspections, which are done on a more frequent basis than those by the state.
“This just shows that regulations don’t kill the business,” said Adams County Commissioner Eva Henry. “There can be a balance between regulation and drilling.”
Local governments were given the power to adopt their own oil and gas regulations under Senate Bill 181, the 2019 law that focused state oil and gas regulation on protecting public health, safety and welfare as well as the environment and wildlife.
Adams County was the first local government to take advantage of those powers. “Adams County wasn’t Boulder County so we weren’t going to ban it and we weren’t Weld County so it wasn’t going to be ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” Henry said.
The county’s rules and inspections haven’t resolved all problems as there are still spills, leaking orphan wells and drilling pads that predate Senate Bill 181 close to homes.
“The regulations are a step in the right direction,” said Lyndsey Collins, a county resident who has been involved in grassroots groups challenging drilling. “Still, in the last 12 months 22 new wells were approved by the county. … So while we have the strictest rules, I am not seeing a huge difference.”
New rules limit the time drilling permits are valid
Following Adams County’s lead, more than a dozen other municipalities and counties have enacted their own oil and gas regulations.
“Senate Bill 181 did what it was supposed to do, which was allow local governments to adopt more protective rules,” said Mike Foote, an environmental lawyer, former state senator and a co-sponsor of the legislation.
“Local governments and residents have more say, there have been fewer controversies over oil and gas development,” Foote said.
The Adams County rules require operators to run community outreach programs to keep neighbors informed and to carry environmental liability insurance. They must also monitor air and noise, use quieter electric drills, low-emitting diesel engines and drilling muds that do not create fumes.
The rules cut the time a drilling permit is good to three years from five years. In the past if 10 wells were permitted, drilling just one would hold the site and permit forever. Now all wells must be drilled in the three-year window. Wells permitted but not drilled would need a new permit.
Adams County rules, like the state regulations, require a 2,000-foot setback from homes for new drilling pads, but while the state measures the distance from the drill pad to the home, the county measures from the closest point of activity to the home’s property line.
“We think a farmer should be as safe in his barn and in his home,” said Gregory Dean, the county oil and gas administrator. The difference between the state and county calculations could in some cases add 200 feet to 300 feet to the setbacks.
Some local governments have enacted even more protective rules than Adams County. For example, last November Arapahoe County adopted a 3,000-foot setback from homes for oil and gas drilling operations.
Regulations are only as good as their execution and Adams County has created “the most robust local oil and gas inspection program in the state,” Dean said.
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On A February morning, Huck walked out onto the Chevron Corp.’s Baseline well pad, one of 22 in unincorporated Adams County. There are also three pads in Brighton, under city regulations.
The routine is to first make an AVO inspection — that’s audio to listen for escaping gas, visual for any spills or broken equipment and olfactory for fumes.
After the smell test and eyeballing the site, Huck uses an optical gas imaging camera (a $95,000 investment by the county) to look for leaks AVO can’t detect. “You can hear a leak of 10 grams per hour,” Huck said, a hissing sound. “The camera can see one at 1 gram per hour.”
If there is a problem Huck said he calls the operator. Chevron, Civitas Resources and Providence Energy are the three biggest in the county. “We usually get a response within 24 hours,” Huck said. “We’ve got a pretty good relationship with the operators.”
The operators agree. “Working with the county commissioners and oil and gas staff, we laid a blueprint for successfully developing resources in urban areas, ” Natalie Svendsen, Chevron community engagement representative, said in an email. “Building relationships is key to this success.”
Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for Civitas, said “the county has been responsive and come to the table in good faith negotiations.” Many of the requirements, he said, such as using electric drilling rigs, are things the company tries to do in whatever county it is operating.
The county also reports any leaks, emissions and to the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, state agency which oversees oil and gas activities.
Every well — producing or not — gets inspected annually
The goal is to inspect every well in the county; there are about 600 producing wells and 318 orphan wells, once a year, Dean said, while state inspectors get to each well about once every two years. Operators are charged $358.09 for an inspection.
In 2023, the two county inspectors made 811 inspections and found about a third of the wells, mainly orphan wells, were not in compliance. For operating wells 88% complied with the rules and all the wells for the two largest operators — Chevron and Civitas — were all in compliance.
The 88% compliance rate is an improvement over the 66% rate in 2021. “We think that the result of inspections,” Dean said.
Orphan wells continue to be a problem. Ninety-two percent of the orphan wells inspected in the last two years were out of compliance and inspectors discovered 50 releases and leaks from orphan wells.
About three-quarters of the county’s orphan wells were low-producing sites linked to the closure of an old gas gathering system in 2018.
A Colorado State University study found that several of the county’s orphan wells vent massive amounts of methane, with the largest emitting 165 pounds per hour, 142% more than the average for unplugged wells in the state.
The inspections led to 15 wells being moved up the state Orphan Well Program’s priority plugging list. Civitas’ Coolidge said that the company has volunteered to plug 40 orphan wells in its operating area. In 2023, 10 of those wells were in Adams County.
“There are 18 orphan wells within a mile and a half of my home,” county resident Collins said.
Another problem is the legacy of drill sites approved before the passage of Senate Bill 181, like Baseline. “The closest home is 700 feet away,” Dean said. “This likely would not be permitted now.”
After drilling eight wells in 2019, before Senate Bill 181 was enacted, Chevron came back to drill 16 wells in 2023. Chevron obtained the Adams County sites last year when it acquired PDC Energy.
The regulations don’t apply to these pre-181 sites, but the county added an amendment process in 2022 under which an operator seeking to make equipment changes on a site needs county approval.
This has enabled the county to apply some of its regulations to these old sites and get equipment removed, Dean said. At the Baseline pad, for example, 23 oil-water separators, 20 oil tanks, five water tanks and nine combustors were removed from the site.
That approach has not satisfied some residents. When in 2021 an operator wanted to drill 11 wells on its Ivey pad, within 1,400 feet of residences and 2,300 feet of a school and day care center, it sparked protests and the creation of grassroots group Adams County Communities for Drilling Accountability Now.
The group sued the ECMC — at that time the Colorado OIl and Gas Conservation Commission — to stop the project. Foote was one of their lawyers.
“They were unsuccessful,” Foote said. “There are still issues with the pre-181 permits being too close to homes. This is the source of many controversies we are seeing.”
Not all sailing in the north metro region is smooth
In January the ECMC rejected a proposal by Civitas to drill 18 wells on an existing pad in a heavily populated area between Broomfield and Erie. The drilling plan was opposed by Broomfield, Erie and area residents.
Chevron has just finished drilling eight pre-181 wells on its Edmundson pad, where the nearest home is 1,000 feet away and Civitas recently completed drilling 16 wells near Barr Lake, where the nearest home is 2,000 feet away.
Dean said the use of the amendment to add requirements is having a positive impact. When the Ivey pad was drilled using diesel rigs and engines the county received 70 noise complaints. For the Edmundson and Barr Lake drilling with electric rigs the county field a total of two noise complaints.
Still both industry and county residents remain wary of the county regulations.
“Operators working in Adams County are finishing up the last of their permits that were approved prior to 2019,” Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, an industry trade group, said in an email. “Since then, the county has not approved a local permit for nearly five years, meaning production likely will decrease in future years unless the county works alongside industry to keep pathways open for permit approvals.”
The county received its first post-Senate Bill 181 drilling plan in January, Dean said.
And Collins said, “Once these regulations were in place, we thought we’d be more protected. That doesn’t seem to be the case. Drilling goes on and we don’t know what the cumulative impact will be.”