City environmental officials are closely monitoring fracking operations at the Knight oil and gas well pad north of Longmont, which has already drawn criticism from one resident who lives near the site.
“It’s quite a disruptive operation,” Jane Turner, Longmont’s air quality and oil and gas coordinator told the city council Tuesday night. “The city is very concerned about it.”
Kathleen Kemper, who lives at Nesting Crane Lane near Colo. 66, said her home rests over 400 feet from the Knight wells and that truck activity makes her house vibrate throughout the day.
“It's a very loud, smelly, rumbling operation,” Kemper told the city council during the public invited portion of the council’s work session. “It’s enough to make my skin crawl.”
Cub Creek Energy, the operator of the Knight wells, drilled 12 wells between February and May and began hydraulic fracturing this past weekend, Turner told the city council. Hydraulic fracturing — also called fracking — will last over the next eight to 10 weeks at the Knight wells.
Fracking forces open fissures in subterranean rocks by introducing liquid at high pressure to extract oil and gas, according to the United States Geological Survey.
The city is conducting groundwater and air quality monitoring during the tenure of the work, Turner said. So far, the city has not detected pollutants coming from the site, she added.
The Knight well site emerged from a 2018 legal agreement between the city and Cub Creek Energy and TOP Operating to minimize oil and gas surface operations in the city. The two operators agreed to plug and abandon eight existing oil and gas facilities, withdraw forced pooling applications and relinquish the right to drill up to 80 permitted oil and gas wells at locations around Union Reservoir, according to a city staff report to the city council.
As a result of the agreement, Cub Creek has consolidated its oil and gas development to two pads located north of the city, the staff report states. The first of the two well pads, Olander, began producing in early 2019, followed by the Knight wells, the report states.
Plugging the Stamp #31-2C well, located on the northwest side of Union Reservoir, during the first week of July, was part of the agreement with the two operators, according to the report.
The Tabor #7 oil and gas wells, located just south of the Innovation Center off Quail Road, were plugged during the last week of June.
Longmont now has no active wells operating within its city limits, Turner told the city council.
Turner credited past city councils, as well as the current body, city staff members and citizen activists for the work in putting an end to the last two existing wells in the city. “This is a big and a unique achievement here on the Front Range,” Turner said.
