Drilling Near Rocky Flats: Oil And Gas Co. Applies For 31 Permits

DENVER, CO — A British-owned oil and gas company with offices in Denver applied this month for state permits to drill near the Rocky Flats wildlife refuge area, a former nuclear weapons site.

Highlands Natural Resources Corp. announce to shareholders that the company would apply for permits for to establish "drilling and spacing units for up to a 104 well development program" in a 2,560-acre site west of Denver.

The company planned to file permits with the state regulatory agency, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission before the Nov. 6 election, to get in under the deadline before voters decide on Proposition 112, which could change rules for setbacks for oil and gas.

According to the COGCC website, permits are pending in Jefferson County for up to 31 wells near the former nuclear trigger facility, most of which was opened as a national wilderness area after a $7 billion federal cleanup.

Critics immediately worried that horizontal drilling, the method most commonly used in Colorado, could extend drilling on underground land below the wilderness area, as well as the central region where radioactive waste is buried (now controlled by the Department of Energy.)

Conservation groups told the Denver Post it appeared that from the location of the permits, drilling could occur under the federal land's boundaries.

“This is incredible,” Gina Hardin, president of the conservation group 350 Colorado told the Post. “This is a graphic demonstration of just how much the industry needs our regulation, that they will not self-regulate.”

Highlands told the Post they had “intentionally located proposed oil and gas locations outside the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge boundaries.”

READ MORE in the Denver Post

Related: Former Nuclear Weapons Site Opens To Recreation

Related: Polis Can't Stop The Rock: Former Nuclear Facility Open To Public

Related: Judge OKs Trail-Building At Rocky Flats During Suit

Related: Rocky Flats Soil Sampling Proposed As Refuge Controversy Swirls

Image: Jerry Jacka departs a trailhead on his mountain bike at Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge outside Denver on Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018, the first day the refuge was open to the public. The refuge is on the outskirts of a former U.S. government factory that manufactured plutonium triggers for nuclear weapons. (AP Photo/Dan Elliott)

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