Dear Director Murphy and Commissioners,

We are writing to object to COGCC approval of any of Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc’s (XOG’s) applications and associated permits related to XOG’s proposed oil and gas development project in Broomfield, CO, unless and until serious deficiencies are addressed.

As residents who are seriously concerned about the health and safety impacts of XOG’s 84 well project next to residential neighborhoods in Broomfield and surrounding communities (the “Project”), we are asking that the Applications related to this proposed development, including the Livingston Pad, not move forward at this time for the following reasons:

1) The Applications and proposed permits are not in compliance with the COGCC’s spacing unit orders.
On October 31, 2017, in approving XOG’s spacing unit applications in Broomfield, the COGCC ordered that “Any applications for Permits to Drill (Form 2) or Oil and Gas Location Assessments (Form 2A) filed by Extraction Oil and Gas, Inc in the unit on surface lands within the City and County of Broomfield will comport with the October 24, 2017 Amended and Restated Oil and Gas Operator Agreement between the Applicant and the City and County of Broomfield.”

The Best Management Practice (BMP) language attached to the Applications falls far short of the BMPs in the XOG Operator Agreement. As pointed out during COGCC’s public comment period, and subsequently by the City and County of Broomfield, the Applications and proposed permits do not include many BMPs that are needed to protect the health and safety of Colorado citizens when operations occur close to residential neighborhoods.

For example, the Operator Agreement requires that XOG’s Comprehensive Drilling Plan (CDP) include a comprehensive Risk Management Plan that identifies how risks will be avoided. In the draft CDP currently before the City, XOG identifies twelve individual catastrophic risks in the Risk Management Plan each with a 3-10% chance of occurrence — among other risks. The average cumulative risk amounts to an estimated 55%, yet these risks are not fully mitigated or even mitigated to the extent possible.

2) XOG has not provided a root cause analysis of either the Windsor or Berthoud accident.
The Windsor report lists potential contributing factors but comes to no conclusion. The COGCC report on the Berthoud accident indicates further investigation is needed to research how XOG’s drilling of new wells 3000 feet away caused a mud spill from an improperly plugged well. This must occur before XOG’s Form 2s and 2As go forward, especially given the many plugged and abandoned wells in our neighborhoods.

3) XOG has not met the standard set by the Colorado Court of Appeals in Martinez v. COGCC.
XOG has never addressed the fact that these Applications fail to satisfy the standard set by the Colorado Court of Appeals in Martinez, et al. v. Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, et al., 2017 COA 37 (March 23, 2017). There are many health studies indicating that living within certain distances of active wells can be detrimental to the health of residents. Several of these studies have been released in the last year, subsequent to the report issued by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. In particular, XOG has not provided any analysis of the cumulative effects that multiple well pads and 84 new wells will have on the existing and future residents in our area. The COGCC Rules do not consider the cumulative impact of multiple oil and gas locations in a discrete residential area. The XOG project can and must be considered holistically to better understand how this project when combined with other nearby projects will impact the health, safety and welfare of the many residents who live in our community.

Therefore, we ask that you:

1. Deny, or at a minimum not approve, the Applications and associated permits unless and until all BMPs from the Operator Agreement are included with the Applications and permits.

2. Grant simultaneous hearings on all of the Project applications, including the Livingston Pad, to ensure that this enormous residential project is viewed and considered in a holistic manner, and the issues of health and safety are reviewed for the entire Project as well as in combination with other nearby projects.

3. Require that XOG fully mitigate, or at a minimum mitigate to the extent possible, all risks that are in its Risk Management Plan in the CDP.

4. Require that XOG provide a report containing a root cause analysis of the Windsor and Berthoud accidents, and incorporate into their Applications and associated permits the measures that will be taken to ensure these root causes are addressed so that they do not happen again.

We would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this matter and would be glad to provide any further information that you might require. You can contact us at: leadership@broomfieldconcered.org.

Thank you for your consideration,

From Broomfield Concerned and Concerned Residents