After two full days of hearings, the Energy and Carbon Management Commission on Friday delayed closing arguments and a decision on the Lowry Ranch CAP until next week.

The hearing, on whether to move forward with an oil and gas comprehensive area plan near the Aurora Reservoir, began Tuesday morning and lasted about nine hours, including presentations from Crestone Resources, a subsidiary of Civitas, who is proposing the drilling plan.

Day two of the hearing began Friday morning and lasted into the early evening, with Save the Aurora Reservoir, a nonprofit organization fighting against the proposal, bringing forward witnesses and arguments against the plan. 

Commissioners then decided to postpone closing arguments and a decision on the CAP to Wednesday, saying they did not want to run later into the evening Friday. 

The hearing will resume at the beginning of the ECMC’s general meeting Wednesday, which starts at 9 a.m.

First thing Friday, commissioners asked Crestone to address letters of concern about the Superfund site from the EPA and, more recently, Rep. Jason Crow. 

The EPA requested a “reasonable” setback from the site, and Crestone will follow this request, Crestone officials said. Wells will be so far underneath the site, about 7,000 feet, that the site will not be affected, according to Crestone officials. 

The EPA did not directly confirm that this setback was “reasonable,” and did not give any specific numbers for what they considered “reasonable,” instead handing that decision off to the ECMC.

Marsha Goldsmith Kamin, the president of STAR, spoke as a witness Friday morning and said the project is not safe for the community and wildlife in the area, and “should be denied.”

Kamin was followed by several other witnesses from STAR, including a sound specialist and an emergency responder, who expressed a variety of concerns with the CAP, including concerns over sound travel despite sound barriers and a lack of a response plan in the case that something goes wrong.

Crestone’s lawyer, Jamie Jost, hit the witnesses with a barrage of questions, asking about their experience on these matters and questioning where their data came from. Commissioners also asked questions, clarifying the experience of the speakers and asking for further information on provided data. 

Of each witness, Jost asked if they were aware that they were representing an “activist organization” with a “mission to oppose oil and gas operations in Colorado.”

At the beginning of Tuesday’s hearing, the four present ECMC commissioners — Brett Ackerman, John Messner, Mike Cross and Chair Jeff Robbins — voted unanimously to grant “affected party” status to STAR, which was formed to oppose the CAP.

The decision came after Civitas attorney Jamie Jost argued that the organization did not meet the distance requirements and several other requirements to be an “affected party.”

The commission then voted not to let Maverick Mineral Partners II, LLC officially present during the hearings.

Maverick, which holds oil and gas leases in parts of Arapahoe County, requested time to present “testimony and evidence related to lack of surface locations outside the Lowry Ranch CAP to develop its leasehold interests, impacts of the Lowry Ranch CAP on its correlative rights, technical feasibility of its proposed relief, and additional matters as necessary,” according to the petition the organization submitted.

Talk about the proposed drilling project started two years ago, when oil and gas company Civitas filed the CAP — which includes 32,000 acres of proposed subsurface mineral development. The company proposed eight locations with a total of 166 new wells and 14 existing horizontal wells. The development includes drilling about 7,000 feet under the Aurora Reservoir.

After several revisions sought by ECMC, the state regulatory body determined in February that the application was complete.

Area residents have raised concerns about the proposed drilling, citing worries in particular about the wells’ proximity to homes and environmental and health problems.

Government agencies like the EPA have also raised concerns about the wells’ proximity to the Superfund site, where about 138 million gallons of liquid industrial waste was disposed of in unlined pits between 1965 and 1980. But the EPA is not objecting to the proposal, nor is the Colorado Department of Health and Environment.

Civitas has countered that the project offers unequivocal benefits to the surrounding areas and to the county. Company officials also promised to adopt a wide array of precautions, including building wells farther away from homes and adding air monitoring and sound barriers to protect residents and ensure the project does not negatively affect the area.

Civitas added the project would yield an estimated $235 million in tax revenue for Arapahoe County.

Even if the CAP itself is approved by the ECMC, Civitas has to get each proposed well site approved before they are allowed to move forward with them, according to Arapahoe County’s website.

At this point in the process, Civitas has contacted mineral owners with offers to lease minerals and is now seeking approval from the ECMC on the CAP.

The ECMC regulates wells and all downhole and underground aspects of the drilling process, as well as well pads, according to the Arapahoe County website.

Arapahoe County regulates the surface aspects, including well pads and access roads. The county has approval criteria for the well pads, and if applications meet the criteria, the county is required to approve the applications, according to the website.

If the applications are approved by the county, they go to the ECMC in the form of an OGDP (Oil & Gas Development Plan), and each one will receive its own public hearing with the opportunity for public comment.