The latest clash involves the ongoing debate about how close those wells should be to homes.

Next month, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission must approve rules that define “cumulative impacts” of pollution and address how they affect what are known as disproportionately impacted communities across the state.

Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill last year directing the energy commission to establish rules regarding the cumulative impacts of drilling by considering how the oil and gas industry’s work can harm air and water quality, wildlife and public health, as well as increase odors and noise, in communities that are disproportionately impacted by pollution.

The cumulative impacts rule comes on the heels of the commission’s decision this week to approve a comprehensive plan from Crestone to drill up to 166 petroleum wells near Aurora Reservoir, despite strong opposition from a nearby neighborhood where homes cost between $600,000 and $1 million.

At issue in the newest debate is a provision that would have required a company to receive consent from every resident or building owner within 2,000 feet of a proposed drilling site. Right now, rules state drilling sites must have a 2,000-foot setback from homes, hospitals, schools and office complexes, but there are exemptions that allow companies to drill and those permits are rarely denied.

Environmentalists say those exemptions provide numerous loopholes that allow the industry to drill wherever it wants, and this latest provision was needed to protect the communities that suffer the most from air pollution, noise, traffic and other issues caused by drilling.

“It creates more room for the industry to continue to produce oil and gas in disproportionately impacted communities,” said Patricia Garcia-Nelson, an advocate for GreenLatinos Colorado.

“Blunt instrument to ban the industry”

The energy commission has been working on drafts of the new cumulative impacts rule for months, and those early versions — reviewed by environmentalists, oil and gas companies and lawyers — included the requirement for consent from neighbors. That changed last week when the commission’s staff released the latest draft.

Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the industry urged the commission to drop the consent requirement.

“We feel those setbacks are unnecessary because they are a one-size-fits-all blunt instrument to ban the industry from Colorado,” he said.

The state already has rules in place to protect communities, Haley said.

Depending on the specific project, the state can require operators to use electric drilling rigs or install a closed-loop system that cuts toxic emissions. Regulators also can impose rules that reduce traffic, noise and odors, too.

“It’s not just about emissions,” Haley said. “Sometimes it’s about truck traffic. Sometimes it’s about odor. There are a lot of tools at the ready to make sure the communities are protected.”

Haley also noted that effectively banning new wells in the state would force Colorado to buy its gasoline and petroleum products from other sources. That would have an environmental impact, too, because the product would have to be shipped, trucked and piped into the state.

Colorado is the fourth-largest state supplier of crude oil and eighth-largest natural gas producer, according to the Energy Information Administration. The industry contributes nearly $2 billion in state and local tax revenue in Colorado.

“The commission has listened to their concerns for years, which is why we have the most protective environmental standards in the world right here in Colorado,” Haley said of environmentalists. “Some of these groups are not going to be satisfied until there’s a ban on oil and gas in Colorado.”

Considering cumulative impacts

Environmental advocates say the state regulators who make decisions on drilling permits ignore communities where residents are mostly Latino, Black or Indigenous and whose income levels are often lower than the state average. A consent provision would have given them a stronger voice in decision-making for drilling permits.

“I’ve been doing testimony in front of the commission since 2017 and we keep hearing the same ‘the sky is falling’ claims from the industry, but… the concerns of the community have never changed, and they’re never been addressed,” Garcia-Nelson said. “It’s really heartbreaking.”

To explain how cumulative impacts on a community should be considered, Garcia-Nelson, who lives in Greeley, offered as an example the neighborhood near the JBS Foods meatpacking plant on the north side of the city.

Three oil and gas operations sit within a half mile of the plant. There are homes less than a half mile from the plant and the drilling sites, and they’re all close to the Cache la Poudre River, she said.

If cumulative impacts were to be considered before issuing a drilling permit, regulators would need to consider how all of those industrial operations combine — air pollution, water pollution, traffic, noise and foul smells — to affect nearby residents rather than solely judging the impact of the single permit under consideration, as is the practice now.

Allowing residents to give consent would help people in a city surrounded by oil and gas drilling, Garcia-Nelson said.

“In Greeley, you can’t get away from it,” she said.

“Only one set of concerns being addressed”

When the energy commission’s staff released the latest draft on Aug. 2, the provision that would have required consent to override setbacks was struck from the proposal.

Environmentalists were livid that the provision not only was gone, but that it had been removed seemingly out of the blue after months of drafts included it. Now, their written rebuttals are due Friday and they have little time to organize opposition ahead of rulemaking hearings that begin Sept. 3.

“It literally seems like the ECMC accepted every one of the industry’s concerns and stripped out every one of the community’s concerns,” said Rebecca Curry, an attorney for Earthjustice, a nonprofit law center that takes on legal cases for environmental groups. “They made a bunch of changes that go in the wrong direction.”

Andrew Forkes-Gudmundson, senior manager for state policy at Earthworks, said about a third of the oil and gas developments in the past few years have been within 2,000 feet of neighborhoods. And most of those neighborhoods qualified as disproportionately impacted by the state, which uses a population-based formula that takes into account ethnicity and race, income, housing costs and language barriers.

Those communities are least likely to fight back because they do not have the time and resources to read hundreds of pages of technical material and sit through lengthy meetings.

“They’re most susceptible to having developments move in with little pushback,” he said.

That’s why regulators need to consider measures that protect those communities that suffer the most from toxic air pollution, Forkes-Gudmundson said. And it seems those regulators are going to ignore a legislative mandate to consider those neighborhoods in their decisions, he said.

“There’s only one set of concerns being addressed, and it’s certainly not to the disproportionately impacted communities who could have oil and gas developments in their backyards,” he said.

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“We are devastated by the commission’s decision to approve the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan,” said Marsha Goldsmith Kamin, president of Save The Aurora Reservoir or STAR in a statement. “This is without doubt the wrong decision for the health, safety and environment of our community.”

The Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, after considering and rejecting a request for an additional delay, voted 3 to 1 on Wednesday afternoon to approve the Lowry Ranch CAP, or comprehensive area plan.

The approval was conditioned on Crestone using electric-powered rigs and equipment at all pad sites rather than the three out of 11 it had gotten guarantees from Xcel Energy to supply. Electric rigs generate less noise and air pollution and are now common when drilling occurs near residential areas. Sound walls would add another level of noise mitigation.

Crestone must still win regulatory approval for individual pad sites and local approvals from Arapahoe County, and Kamin vowed that her organization would keep up its fight. But the CAP approval removes a major hurdle for Crestone.

Commissioner John Messner, who cast the dissenting vote, expressed concerns that Crestone left several important questions unaddressed, including wildfire mitigation, which has become a more pressing consideration after the 2021 Marshall fire in Boulder County destroyed more than 1,000 homes.

“I’m not sure the applicant has met the burden of proof in this application,” he told the other commissioners. In short, Crestone wasn’t comprehensive enough in its planning and seemed more focused on checking the boxes, Messner argued.

Wildfire mitigation plans aren’t required under state CAP rules and emergency response plans are typically addressed with local pad requests. Given the dry grass and high wind conditions in the area, STAR has expressed a concern about the fire risk.

Other concerns raised by opponents include the contamination risk to the Aurora Reservoir, potential seismic activity and disruptions to the Lowry Landfill, a 480-acre Superfund site at the northeast corner of Quincy Avenue and Gun Club Road owned by Denver. Crestone has addressed that last concern by agreeing to not drill under the landfill.

Increased road traffic in the area is another worry. Crestone plans to pipe its brackish “produced” water to a central location and then truck it up to Weld County to process, said Mike Foote, an environmental attorney representing STAR. More than 100 million barrels will be moved on local roadways.

Crestone, a subsidiary of Denver-based Civitas Resources, plans to drill up to 166 wells on 11 locations across about 32,000 acres.

The State Land Board owns most of those mineral rights on that land and will use proceeds to fund schools. Lowry Ranch represents one of the state’s most lucrative holdings with solar, farm and oil and gas leases, including 17 existing Crestone wells that have generated more than $200 million for state coffers.

The original mineral rights agreement with the state land board dates back to 2011, but opponents argue strong growth in the area has altered the conditions behind the initial approval.

Crestone, which obtained the mineral rights at a later date, filed its application 645 days ago and its plan has faced public scrutiny from multiple parties for more than a year, said Jamie Jost with Jost Energy Law, which is representing Crestone in its application.

Under state rules, only “impacted parties” are allowed to weigh in on an application, including homeowners living within 2,000 feet of a proposed well site. Only one home at Lowry Ranch met that condition and the owner has agreed to allow drilling. Two other homes are within 3,000 feet.

The ECMC made an exception and allowed STAR members to testify on the application despite a lack of legal standing to do so, she said.

Kait Schwartz, director of API Colorado, a petroleum industry trade group, said it was both “disappointing and revelatory” that despite meeting all the requirements outlined in state law, Crestone still faced significant resistance.

“Our operators are proud to produce in Colorado, yet it is disheartening to encounter such opposition even when the regulations and requirements are strictly adhered to,” Schwartz said in a statement.

Members of STAR viewed it differently, saying Crestone’s plan would impact them in multiple ways and that they deserve to be heard.

“Local residents and STAR raised dozens, if not hundreds of concerns with this CAP while expert witnesses pointed out many issues with its analysis, conclusions, and stated facts. In my opinion, this ECMC decision ignores or dismisses a vast majority of these concerns made by the community,” said Jason Ephraim, a resident of the nearby Southshore neighborhood in an email.

Neighbors worried about potential health and ecological impacts from the project want the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission to say no to the plan after an extensive hearing that’s set to begin Tuesday. The oil and gas producer behind it hopes to install hydraulic fracturing operations at eight sites across Lowry Ranch in Arapahoe County over the next four years.

“The main problem is the effect on public welfare, safety and health,” said Marsha Kamin, who moved to Aurora’s Southshore neighborhood 18 months ago from Michigan. “We’re talking about thousands and thousands and thousands of people.”

As Colorado’s population has ballooned in recent decades, especially in Denver’s northern and eastern suburbs that overlay the mineral-rich Denver-Julesburg Basin, friction has grown between new and expanding neighborhoods and the oil and gas operations set up nearby. Six years ago, the evolving standoff led to an attempt by a citizen group to appreciably increase the required distance between wells and homes through a statewide ballot initiative. Voters shot it down.

Less than a year later, the legislature passed Senate Bill 19-181 and Gov. Jared Polis signed it into law. The law prioritized public health, safety and the environment when state officials consider oil and gas development — a profound change from the industry-focused approach Colorado had taken for decades with energy extraction.

Kamin and her neighbors, hundreds of whom are part of the Save the Aurora Reservoir advocacy group, are putting their hopes in Colorado’s five-year-old oil and gas reform law to halt the project. The group has been working to derail Crestone Peak Resources’ proposed fracking plan for the better part of two years.

“It’s disheartening that an industry can have this much power over people,” Kamin said.

But Lowry Ranch opponents may face a bumpy road this week, following a recommendation by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission’s director, Julie Murphy, that the board of commissioners approve the comprehensive area plan for the project.

In her final determination this month, Murphy wrote that Crestone’s plan “complies with all applicable requirements” in the ECMC’s rules.

The commission’s Tuesday hearing is scheduled to go all day, with a second meeting set for Friday if more time is needed. A decision to deny, approve or stay the plan is expected by week’s end, agency spokesman Chris Arend told The Denver Post.

If the overall plan wins approval, more hearings would be needed to consider individual well pads and wells, at both the state and county levels. Though the opponents largely live nearby in Aurora, Colorado’s third-largest city, the pads would be on state-owned land in an unincorporated part of the county just over Aurora’s city line.

While the ECMC approved more than 800 oil and gas wells in 2022 and more than 700 last year, it has denied applications to drill in recent years. In 2022, it said no to a plan from Kerr-McGee to drill 33 wells near a Firestone neighborhood. The commissioners’ main objection centered on 62 houses that would have been too close to a well pad, violating the state’s minimum 2,000-foot setback from homes and schools.

In January, the commission denied permits for 18 wells at Coyote Trails near the border of Erie and Broomfield.

Ann Hussain, who lives in Southshore with a sweeping backyard view of the Aurora Reservoir, said she learned about Crestone’s plans only in the spring. She worries that drilling under the reservoir could result in contaminants leaking into the body of water or into aquifers.

She also worries about air pollution generated at the well pads, one of which would lie less than a mile from a school. One of the eight pads, dubbed State Sunlight-Long, would be just 3,200 feet from her back fence. Thirty-two wells are planned for Sunlight-Long.

“I can’t believe you can take a community and set up an industry right outside these backyards,” Hussain said. “How is it that this can be done so close to people’s homes?”

Plan meets more expansive county buffer

The answer to that question lies in the state’s oil and gas rules, which permit drilling outside a 2,000-foot buffer from schools and neighborhoods. Last fall, Arapahoe County commissioners imposed even wider setbacks than what the state requires, mandating a 3,000-foot buffer between wells and occupied structures, landfills and reservoirs — both existing and planned.

That rule-making followed an attempt by project opponents in April 2023 to get Arapahoe County to impose a six-month halt on issuing new permits to energy companies to drill. The county commissioners voted 3-2 to reject a moratorium.

Rich Coolidge, a spokesman for Crestone parent company Civitas Resources, said not only does the Lowry Ranch plan comply with state rules, it also hews to Arapahoe County’s oil and gas regulations.

“The redundant safeguards and subsequent monitoring have shown that oil and natural gas development can safely occur without impacting groundwater and surface water sources,” Coolidge wrote in an email. “In fact, multiple layers of steel casing and cement underneath more than a mile of rock separate the wellbore from our state’s aquifers and surface water like the Aurora Reservoir.”

Crestone plans to drill 7,500 feet below the surface before running its wells horizontally. Coolidge said wells have “been drilled over a mile below tens of thousands of homes in the Front Range, with no impacts.”

Crestone will implement measures to mitigate impacts at its well sites, he said, including soundwalls, electric-powered drilling rigs, low-emission engines and low-odor mud during the drilling phase. Oil, gas and water will travel off-site by pipe, he said, “to reduce truck traffic during the production phase.”

Dan Haley, the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said the state’s 2019 oil and gas law was meant to “create the most environmentally protective rules in the country … without banning the production of this vital resource.”

“Arapahoe County, and others, have passed regulations that exceed the state’s already stringent protections,” he said, “and our members are meeting those high expectations and producing this resource cleaner and better than most anywhere in the world.”

Congressman focuses on Superfund site

But such assurances haven’t quieted concerns about what lies in the shadow of Lowry Ranch, a 26,500-acre sweep of prairie owned by the Colorado State Land Board.

Near to the land board property is the Denver-owned Lowry Landfill, a 480-acre Superfund site at the northeast corner of Quincy Avenue and Gun Club Road, where an estimated 138 million gallons of liquid industrial waste are buried. An underground plume of contaminated water has migrated several miles from what is considered one of the country’s most contaminated toxic waste sites.

Some of the proposed well pads’ proximity prompted U.S. Rep. Jason Crow to send a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency on July 15. He asked whether it had studied the potential for extractive seismic activity at the landfill and how that might impact “the safety of the Aurora Reservoir Dam and the reservoir itself.”

The Democratic congressman asked how the agency could “be certain the drilling will not cause fractures and instability that threaten the mitigation strategies EPA has in place at (the landfill).” He also inquired if the agency has considered expanding the boundaries of the Superfund site to include the underground plume.

Coolidge, from Civitas, said the company this year agreed not to drill underneath the Lowry Landfill.

“On claims around seismicity, there has been no reportable seismic activity caused by hydraulic fracturing in Colorado,” he wrote.

But Mike Foote, an environmental attorney representing Save the Aurora Reservoir — and a prime sponsor of SB19-181 when he was a state senator — said “drilling can cause earthquakes.”

The United States Geological Service says that while most induced earthquakes are not directly the result of fracking, they can be triggered by the “disposal of waste fluids that are a byproduct of oil production.”

“You don’t want to cause earthquakes, and Crestone hasn’t studied or addressed the issue anywhere close to adequately enough to allow them to drill,” Foote said.

Drilling could begin next year

Matt Sura, an oil and gas attorney who represents local governments and conservation organizations, said the five-year-old law was a critical step in more effectively regulating the energy industry and giving local governments a bigger voice in the process. Sura is not involved in the Lowry Ranch proposal.

“Senate Bill 181 required that there be public hearings on locations (of wells and equipment) and allowed the public to speak to the decision-makers, rather than those decisions (being) made administratively,” he said. “That was a huge sea change.”

Where there is still room for improvement, Sura said, is in state regulators addressing the cumulative impacts of oil and gas development, specifically when it comes to air pollution. The ECMC will start hearings on rules for that in mid-September.

“I’m hopeful the commission is going to be willing to set limits on oil and gas development and drilling — and the amount of pollution that can be emitted from the oil and gas industry,” he said.

But those rules won’t be in place this week when the ECMC meets to consider the Lowry Ranch comprehensive area plan.

The Front Range for years has been out of compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards. In 2022, the EPA designated the nine-county northern Front Range region — including metro Denver — as being in “severe nonattainment,” triggering more federal regulations to clean the air.

That frustrates Kamin, the Southshore resident who watches wildlife move through the neighborhood on their way to and from the rolling hills of Lowry Ranch to the east.

“We’ve been a nonattainment area for years and they want to add more pollution to the area,” she said. “It makes no sense.”

If Crestone’s plan receives the blessing of the ECMC this week, drilling could begin as early as 2025.

Denver Post reporter Judith Kohler contributed to this story

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New state reports say geothermal and hydrogen offer significant opportunities to build on the energy provided by wind, solar and batteries as the state, utilities and communities strive to reduce the effects of climate change. The reports review the potential for tapping more of the energy sources in Colorado as well as the benefits, challenges, economics and mechanics.

The newly released analyses are one of the steps laid out by the Colorado General Assembly in an effort to increase the use of renewable energy sources.

Another was expansion of the former Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s duties to include regulation of geothermal energy. The agency, renamed the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission, has proposed rules for what is expected to be a growing industry in the state. The first hearing is Aug. 5.

“We’re going to be 80% renewable by 2030 and 100% by 2040,” Gov. Jared Polis said.

Solar and wind will always be the workhorses in the quest to move from fossil fuels, Polis said. But once fuel sources reach roughly the mark of 85% renewables, there will be a need for “firm, 365-day, 24-hour supply” to replace natural gas, he added.

“It’s playing around in that 10% to 20% that we need to be above and beyond solar, storage and wind,” Polis said.

New, smaller nuclear power generators are being advanced in some quarters as a possibility.

Polis is especially bullish on geothermal. “There’s enormous potential, largely because of our seismology. We happen to have great subsurface heat in Colorado.”

In his term as chairman of the Western Governors’ Association, Polis led an initiative encouraging geothermal development in the West. The group’s report  “The Heat Beneath Our Feet” said the U.S. accounts for 25% of the world’s installed geothermal energy capacity and the West contains 95% of that capacity.

According to the new state report, the areas in Colorado with the highest potential for producing electricity from geothermal resources, due to the high temperatures of underground water, are: the Upper Arkansas Valley, Raton Basin, Piceance Basin, San Juan Basin, and a spot in the Denver Basin in the eastern part of the state.

While most of the state east of the Front Range has the lowest estimated thermal resource, methods can be used to make geothermal work there, too, the report said. Colorado has long drawn on its many thermal springs for direct geothermal energy. Pumps tap underground heat to both heat and cool buildings.

Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office, said the response to the state’s geothermal grant program was heartening. The state awarded $7.7 million in grants in May to 35 projects across the state.

Denver company Gradient Geothermal received $100,000 to assess the feasibility of developing a thermal energy network by converting oil and gas operations in the Pierce area in eastern Colorado. Toor said grants will be used for preliminary studies into using geothermal for electricity in Steamboat Springs and at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

“To get the funding, they had to show a pathway to financing” for the projects, Polis said.

Geothermal companies have explored working with oil and gas operators in Colorado and other Western states to use geothermal resources to generate electricity. Oil and gas wells are sometimes repurposed to draw water for plants where hot liquids drive generator turbines.

Toor said oil and gas fields in northeastern Colorado could also be good places for geothermal resources. “There is a significant possibility of oil and gas workers taking the skills they have today and using them in geothermal electricity production, even in similar locations.”

While Polis is also excited about using hydrogen as a carbon-free fuel, he acknowledged that there is some controversy around the resource.

Hydrogen is viewed as a way to “decarbonize” shipping, steel-making and other heavy industrial uses. Hydrogen is used in petroleum refining, to make fertilizer, in rocket fuel and to power vehicles.

Some of the controversy around hydrogen stems from the fact that most of what is currently used comes from fossil fuels. NovoHydrogen, a startup in Golden, produces “green” hydrogen, which uses renewable energy to power electrolysis, a process that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The U.S. Department of Energy selected NovoHydrogen to participate in one of seven regional hubs for the development of hydrogen as an energy source. The federal Inflation Reduction Act contains tax credits for green hydrogen projects.

Xcel Energy-Colorado proposed blending hydrogen with natural gas in its plants to decrease emissions and potentially burn 100% hydrogen.

Polis said hydrogen, like natural gas, can be volatile chemically, but in different ways. The state, utilities and companies will have to explore what changes might be needed to existing pipelines to ensure safe shipment of hydrogen.

“We’re getting data, the science around exactly what we need to do to make it a safe or safer than natural gas,” Polis said.

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The lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Denver takes aim at a city ordinance that prohibits natural gas furnaces and water heaters in new commercial and multifamily buildings.

Also targeted is an ordinance that takes effect in 2025 and requires installation of electric systems when gas furnaces and water heaters are replaced in existing buildings and when if it is cost-effective.

Other communities in Colorado and in other states have enacted similar bans as they push to electrify buildings to reduce the effects of climate change and improve air quality. Denver’s climate office estimates that buildings and homes produce nearly two-thirds of the city’s heat-trapping greenhouse gasses causing climate change.

A website by a coalition that tracks policies to reduce emissions associated with buildings lists 135 local governments and six states with laws on the books. In 2022, Crested Butte approved requiring electric heating and water heaters in new residential and commercial buildings.

However, a 2023 federal appeals court decision that prompted the city of Berkeley, Calif., to scrap its ban on natural gas hookups for new homes is raising questions about restrictions on natural gas equipment. The court said the rule violated a federal law that authorizes the Department of Energy to set energy efficiency standards for appliances.

The challenge to Denver’s ordinances claims that they also violate the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which includes energy conservation standards for consumer products. In addition, Denver’s requirements will drive up business costs, jeopardize jobs and make housing, energy, lodging and food service more expensive, the lawsuit said.

Similar claims were made in a lawsuit filed in April by the Colorado Apartment Association, the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association and NAIOP, a commercial real estate association. The complaint also objects to state building codes to electrify buildings.

A spokesperson for Denver’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability and Resiliency said the agency doesn’t comment on litigation.

“There is already a federal framework of regulations setting nationwide appliance standards for consumers that expressly preempt state and local regulations of appliance energy use and efficiency, with only narrow exceptions,” the Restaurant Law Center, a national organization, said Friday in an email on behalf of the groups involved in the latest lawsuit.

Other plaintiffs are the National Association of Home Builders of the United States, Colorado Restaurant Association, Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Denver, American Hotel & Lodging Association, National Apartment Association and National Propane Gas Association

“These natural gas regulations are not simple changes. They will push housing prices even higher and restaurants that rely on gas fired cooking for the flavor and style of cooking for their menu offerings will have to recreate their businesses or close,” the Restaurant Law Center said.

Denver’s building codes dealing with gas appliances apply only to space heating and water heaters. Gas-fired cooking stoves aren’t affected.

Updated July 8, 2024, to clarify that the building codes don’t apply to gas-fired cooking stoves.

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Gas prices in the region have remained steady in the month since motorists started using reformulated gasoline, a special blend that produces less ozone pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency mandated the region’s gas stations sell the blend from June to September — the hot months when ozone pollution is thickest — after declaring Colorado was in severe violation of federal air quality standards.

When the new requirement went into effect on June 1, Gov. Jared Polis and representatives from the oil and gas industry warned gas prices could increase by as much as 60 cents per gallon, which would have pushed the cost of a gallon above $4 for the first time since 2022.

Meanwhile, the EPA estimated the price of gasoline would go up 3 to 5 cents per gallon.

The EPA’s prediction has proven to be more in line with what drivers have paid at the pump.

As of Tuesday, the average cost of a gallon of gas in Colorado was $3.37, up 3 cents since June 2 but down 38 cents from the same time last year. Gas prices jumped 6 cents a gallon overnight Tuesday in anticipation of the July 4 holiday as families hit the roads for vacations and family gatherings.

Skyler McKinley, a spokesman for AAA Colorado, said he has been monitoring gas prices daily since the reformulated gas requirement began. And AAA has studied the impacts of reformulated gas in other parts of the country.

“I was surprised from that vantage point there were so many stories of doom and gloom from reformulated gas,” McKinley said. “That doom and gloom scenario was never in the cards the second Suncor decided they were going to make production here.”

Suncor Energy said it spent $45 million at its Commerce City refinery to make and store the special blend locally. Suncor supplies 35% to 40% of the gas sold in Colorado, so there is a ready supply that doesn’t have to be imported from other states.

McKinley said the concerns about gas prices reaching nearly $4 per gallon were worst-case scenarios that would have been caused by supply chain shortages or other disruptions. But those scenarios have not developed.

Earlier this year, Polis and U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, D-Adams County, lobbied the Biden administration to grant a waiver so that Colorado would not have to sell reformulated gas. The EPA, however, said it had no choice but to enforce the Clean Air Act requirement on the state, but its leaders kept the waiver request open in case of a gas shortage due to unforeseen circumstances later in the year.

Ally Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the governor, said Polis continues to advocate for a federal waiver just in case gas prices spike this summer.

In the days after the reformulated gas went into effect, prices in Colorado jumped an average of 15 cents per gallon but have since stabilized, McKinley said.

On Monday — one month after the reformulated gasoline went on sale — the average cost of a gallon of gas had actually dropped across metro Denver and the northern Front Range. Gas also is about 40 cents per gallon cheaper now than it was at the same time in 2023.

Here’s a look at the average prices for a gallon of gas of Tuesday, according to AAA Colorado:

• National: $3.50
• Colorado: $3.37, up 3 cents since June 2 and down 38 cents since July 2, 2023
• Boulder: $3.34, up 1 cent since June 2 and down 40 cents since July 2, 2023
• Denver: $3.36, up 4 cents since June 2 and down 39 cents since July 2, 2023
• Fort Collins: $3.33, up 1 cent since June 2 and down 41 cents since July 2, 2023
• Greeley: $3.31, up 7 cents since June 2 and down 41 cents since July 2, 2023

Gasoline prices always are volatile because they are impacted by events often out of the control of gas station owners, refineries and politicians.

The most immediate threat to gas prices is Hurricane Beryl, which made landfall Monday on the Caribbean island of Carriacou and started barreling toward Jamaica on Tuesday after becoming the earliest Category 5 storm on record in the Atlantic, fueled by record warm waters. Its projected path would send it through Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, according to The Associated Press.

“Depending on where that lands it could wallop refining capacity nationwide,” McKinley said of the possibility the storm could veer toward the Gulf of Mexico, where the nation gets much of its oil.

Beryl’s arrival early in the season and its strength also raise concerns that 2024’s hurricane season could be a bad one and that could impact U.S. gas prices, McKinley said. Ongoing conflict in the Middle East and Ukraine also causes gas prices to fluctuate, as does OPEC production.

Part of the debate in Colorado involved just how much the region’s air quality would benefit from reformulated gas and whether the pollution reduction would be worth the extra cost to consumers.

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment reported that Suncor’s volatile organic compound emissions increased .81 tons in the past year as it prepared to make the fuel. Volatile organic compounds react with nitrogen oxides on hot summer days to create ground-level ozone pollution, which causes brown smog to hang in the air and is dangerous to people with breathing problems such as asthma.

The EPA estimated that 210 tons of volatile organic compounds and 50 tons of nitrogen oxides would be eliminated by using reformulated gasoline in Colorado over the summer.

Richard Mylott, an EPA spokesman, said producers and suppliers were prepared for the requirement in Colorado and prices reflect that preparation.

“As is normally the case, variability in gasoline prices over the rest of the summer months will be related to driving and consumer demand around busy holidays; global, national or regional events affecting crude oil or refining capacity; and other factors that can impact prices at the pump,” Mylott wrote in an email.

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“It’s the nature of the evolution of wildfire risk,” Xcel Energy Colorado President Robert Kenney said. “Wildfire risk is increasing, not just in Colorado and California, but throughout the country.”

Part of the cost that would be passed onto customers comes from plans for Xcel to purchase 93 artificial intelligence cameras on top of the 42 the company already plans to install by the end of the year, Xcel Energy area Vice President Anne Sherwood said.

“These are cameras that rotate 360 degrees every minute, and they use artificial intelligence to identify smoke plumes and send alerts to our public safety partners,” Sherwood said. “We’re going to expand that network from 42 to 135 and that will cover all of our high-risk areas.”

If approved by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission as submitted, the typical residential bill would increase by 9.56%, or about $8.88 per month, by 2028.

That’s not the only cost customers will see: Kenney said residents and businesses will bear more power shutdowns as wildfire conditions increase. Pre-emptively shutting down the power during windstorms and other high-risk weather will keep blown-down or damaged lines from sparking a blaze in dry vegetation.

The energy utility hopes other measures in the plan will mitigate the need to use the shutdowns and allow Xcel to use them in a more precise manner when it does so, spokesperson Michelle Aguayo said.

Sherwood said other costly additions include burying areas of powerlines underground, increasing inspections and repairs of powerlines and poles, hiring new staff and upgrading technology so damaged lines are less likely to spark and fewer people will be affected for shorter periods by planned outages.

High-risk areas and sections of powerlines to be buried are still being determined, but Sherwood said the utility is considering remoteness and terrain as part of each area’s risk. The higher the wildfire risk, the more likely an area is to see preemptive power shutdowns during extremely windy and dry weather periods.

The proposal comes months after Xcel Energy Colorado in April took the unprecedented step of preemptively cutting power to some parts of the Front Range to minimize the risk of wildfires as 100 mph winds walloped the region and powerlines.

Colorado residents and local officials pushed back against that shutdown, saying there wasn’t enough notice and the company’s communication was frustrating.

Residents and businesses reported losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of food when the electricity went out, critical public facilities were affected and people dependent on oxygen and medical devices that needed power were left vulnerable, people told the PUC.

More preemptive shutdowns are on the horizon for Colorado, but Kenney said Xcel is working to smooth out the problems that surfaced in April.

The goal is to provide more advanced notice for customers so they have time to prepare and take protective measures, Kenney said. Part of the proposed program will also help provide rebates for backup batteries for income-qualified residents who rely on durable medical equipment such as life support machines and ventilators.

To provide that advanced notice, Xcel will add hundreds of weather stations to get detailed information about weather patterns near powerlines and equipment in Colorado, Kenney said. The company will also expand its wildfire risk team to include a department of meteorologists.

Kenney said the goal is to warn first responders and emergency management offices 72 hours before a potential preemptive energy shutdown.

“Then we have plans at 48 and 24 hours to be able to give our customers more precise notice of where and when we would execute those shut-offs,” he said.

Currently, some Xcel powerlines cannot be shut off remotely and require linemen to go out — sometimes in rugged terrain — to operate the breaker, Sherwood said. If the new mitigation program is approved, more than 90% of powerlines could be powered down remotely.

“If we shut off power proactively, even if we’re able to do that remotely, once the wind event passes, we have to go back out and physically look at those lines, either through a foot patrol or through a drone or a helicopter,” Kenney added. “We can’t simply re-energize that line, because if the line was damaged during the wind event and you re-energize that line remotely, then you just created the very risk that you were trying to avoid.”

Kenney denied the updated mitigation plan was motivated by or connected to the 2021 Marshall fire, a stance Xcel has repeatedly upheld.

The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office said the wildfire — which was Colorado’s costliest, destroying $2 billion in property and killing two people — was started by week-old embers on Twelve Tribes property and a sparking Xcel powerline.

The energy company has repeatedly denied fault, calling the investigation flawed even as hundreds of residents, insurance companies and retail giant Target file lawsuits.

“We didn’t start the Marshall fire,” Kenney said. “What’s motivating this plan is the fact that wildfire risk continues to evolve … and we’re taking advantage of new technology. The primary motivation is public safety.”

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A public meeting Monday drew speakers who want to see the Colorado Public Utilities Commission strengthen regulations to carry out a 2023 law that was passed after a widespread outcry over high utility bills.

Besides directing utilities to look at avoiding the kind of price jumps that doubled or tripled some Coloradans’ heat bills in early 2023, Senate Bill 23-291 prohibited utilities from adding expenses for lobbying, certain advertising, public relations, political contributions and membership dues to customers’ rates.

But the bill’s prime sponsors as well as a dozen Colorado organizations and a national watchdog group have argued the proposed regulations aren’t detailed or specific enough to ensure that ratepayers aren’t footing some of the bill. They said initial reports by Xcel Energy-Colorado, Black Hills Energy and Atmos Energy reveal “glaring reporting gaps.”

In a filing with the PUC, the bill’s sponsors, members of a select legislative committee, said they support requiring more specific information from utilities “to ensure that ratepayers are insulated from these costs.”

During Monday’s meeting, Laurie Anderson, a Broomfield City Council member who was representing Colorado Communities for Climate Action, said she is concerned about “the common practice” of utilities across the country using ratepayer money to influence politics.

“Income from monthly bills should never be used by a utility to lobby or work against laws and regulations that would lower those same bills,” Anderson said.

The companies required to report information on activities targeted by the law all objected to the level of detail sought by environmental and community groups and the Energy and Policy Institute, a national organization focused on utilities and renewable energy. Xcel Energy said in a document that the suggested changes to the PUC’s draft rules would result in administrative burdens, creating little or no benefit and possibly higher costs for rate cases.

Providing even more detailed, transaction-level detail, including by employee, “would necessitate a manual review process of upwards of 30,000 transactions annually,” Xcel contended.

Black Hills Energy and Atmos Energy also maintained that the burden of requiring more specifics would outweigh the benefits. The companies said more time is needed to respond to comments on the rules.

State Administrative Law Judge Robert Garvey, who oversaw the public meeting, said there will be an opportunity to file more comments and perhaps another meeting.

During Monday’s meeting, Garvey quizzed speakers about the utilities’ arguments, including that demanding more detailed reports on items they can’t charge customers for could end up boosting the companies’ overall expenses.

“Are we going to have to increase rate expenses to show that they didn’t do anything wrong?” Garvey asked. “I think the ratepayers don’t want to pay a whole lot more for nothing.”

But David Pomerantz, the executive director of the Energy and Policy Institute, said his organization offered examples of rules from other states where utilities must submit more specific data. He said the Colorado utilities’ initial reports contain mostly aggregate rather than specific information.

“The central purpose is to ensure compliance,” Pomerantz said. “Without itemized data, it’s impossible to verify.”

A 2023 nationwide report by the policy group explored ways to ensure that utility customers don’t pay for the companies’ political operations or practices that run counter to customers’ best interests. The group suggested that the Colorado PUC require utilities to itemize lists of expenses by employee and invoice and require companies to report on employees, affiliates and outside vendors conducting the kind of political activities singled out by the law.

“They’re kind of asking for blind trust here. We’re asking the commission to take a trust-but-verify stance,” Pomerantz said.

The Toronto-based business announced the decision Wednesday. Tom Duckett, Hydrostor’s chief development officer, said the company plans to hire 20 more people this year, boosting the Denver staff to about 30.

The company employs roughly 100 people worldwide.

Hydrostor chose Denver as its U.S. base in part because of its industrial activity. Duckett said the company’s technology employs a lot of mining and conventional fossil fuel construction techniques while using power from renewable sources.

Mining and oil and gas have long been mainstays of the state’s economy. Colorado also has a growing renewable energy industry.

Duckett said the company’s strategy is to look at markets that have a growing renewable energy sector.

Denver’s other advantages are its central location and talent pool, Duckett said. Colorado is close to California, where Hydrostor is preparing to build a 500-megawatt energy-storage plant in Kern County, and to potential markets in Arizona and Nevada.

Hydrostor operates a plant in Ontario and expects to start construction next year of one in New South Wales in Australia. The company said it has another 15 projects in the pipeline. Duckett said a plant is planned in Colorado.

The ability to store excess power generated from wind and solar plants to use when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining is considered essential to expanding the use of renewables and reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The basic technology used to store compressed air underground as way to tap the energy later has been around for about 40 years.

However, unlike some models, Hydrostor’s proprietary technology doesn’t use fossil fuels in the process, Duckett said. The company said its method, which involves pumping water to store compressed air underground and water pressure to release it, doesn’t create emissions.

And unlike batteries that hold energy from renewable sources, Hydrostor’s plant has a lifespan of 50 years and can provide up to eight hours of electricity, Duckett said. The process is dubbed “long-duration” energy storage.

A 2023 paper written by staff members at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden said closed-loop pumped storage hydropower systems have the lowest potential of adding to the problem of climate change when looking at the full impacts of material and construction. The study didn’t look at the kind of technology employed by Hydrostor, which doesn’t use fossil fuels.

Hydrostor uses electricity from renewable sources to power compressors at a plant, producing heated compressed air that is stored above ground. A video on the company’s website shows how cooled compressed air is then pushed underground into a water-filled rock cavern. The air displaces the water, which is lifted to a reservoir on the surface.

When energy is needed, the process is reversed. Using gravity, the water on the surface flows into the cavern, pushing the air above ground. The air is reheated and spins turbines to generate electricity.

Duckett said the company uses existing technology, equipment and supply chains. “We just put it together in another way to have it be a clean, long-duration energy solution.”

Updated at 9:40 a.m. May 31 to clarify the scope of the NREL study.

As of February, 65% of the Centennial State’s historic and scenic byways are “electrified.”

The Colorado Department of Transportation’s Scenic & Historic Byway Commission announced that 17 of Colorado’s 26 byways have electric charging stations within 100 miles. This effort is part of the Colorado Greenhouse Gas Pollution Reduction Roadmap that was designed to help the state meet emissions numbers by making electric vehicles more practical and appealing.

It makes sense to be out and about appreciating nature while also protecting it from harmful fumes and pollution, and these charging stations are part of an eco-friendly initiative for tourists.

A Colorado Electric Byway must either have a dual-port DC fast charging station at least every 100 miles within the start and end of the byway or if the byway is under 100 miles long, the station needs to be available within 15 miles of the start or end of the byway.

In addition, nearby communities are being encouraged to install these charging stations at established places frequented by travelers, such as hotels, restaurants, and even trailheads.

The three newest Colorado Electric Byways are:

The Peak to Peak Highway between Estes Park and Black Hawk. This drive can take about three hours over 55 miles on Highway 7 to Highway 72 and then Highway 119. This mountain drive offers views galore including the peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park and Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. Along the way, travelers can stop in charming towns with distinct character, including Estes Park, Nederland, Allenspark, Ward, and Black Hawk.

The Mount Blue Sky Road, which despite a recent name change, is still billed as the highest paved road in North America where it tops out at 14,130 feet above sea level. This road is subject to seasonal closures and there are reservations required in summer to minimize impact (go to recreation.gov for fees and details). Along the way, you can visit Mount Goliath Natural Area, a high alpine garden managed by Denver Botanic Gardens. The byway is 28 miles long and very curvy as you ascend over 7,000 feet in elevation, so plan for at least one hour to go one way.

The Gold Belt Tour Byway is also a National Scenic Byway that takes road trippers through 131 miles of former mining camps and towns. Along the way, the road cuts through Cripple Creek, Victor, Florence, and other spots, as well as gives some stunning views of Pikes Peak, Royal Gorge, and Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Check road conditions ahead of time as some stretches will require a 4 x 4 vehicle to safely pass.

The remaining nine byways will also be “electrified” in the coming years.

For a complete list of Colorado’s scenic and historic byways, go to ColoradoByways.com, and for a full list of charging stations, try Plugshare.com.

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