Community members gear up to oppose fracking near Aurora Reservoir at upcoming public meeting

A public meeting will be held this week to get public input about a controversial fracking well that oil and gas company Civitas wants to build near the Aurora Reservoir, and neighbors are once again getting the chance to say their piece.

"This is the biggie," said Randy Willard, with Save The Aurora Reservoir, a community group opposed to the project.

Thursday is the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission public hearing that Willard and Save the Aurora Reservoir have been gearing up for.

"When they announced the completeness on the applications for Sunlight Long, they immediately set the hearing without consulting us. And it was only two weeks out. And so, we pushed back and said, 'look, we need more time to rally the troops,'" Willard said.

It's the public hearing for the Sunlight-Long fracking well, set to be built near the reservoir and the homes surrounding it.

"This is a 35-acre well pad with 32 wells. We believe it's the largest in the state. It's certainly the largest in the state that would be considered to be residential fracking," Willard said.

He says their group has had a lot of interest as of late. People are asking how they can get involved, likely because the La Plata site has already been installed, and people can see it from their homes and the reservoir.

"All of a sudden, the community's like, 'hey, what's that light on the horizon?'" said Willard.

Civitas, the company behind Lowry Ranch, has always maintained that the site will be safe for the reservoir and residents. When the ECMC approved the Lowry Ranch Comprehensive Area Plan, Civitas Chief Operating Officer Hodge Walker released a statement saying, "This CAP approval is the result of thorough work by the Civitas team and extensive stakeholder engagement to ensure the safe development of Colorado's important natural resources, while protecting the environment and minimizing impacts to our communities. Watkins is a prolific development area within the DJ basin, and we look forward to beginning drilling in the Lowry Ranch area next year."

Willard and Save the Aurora Reservoir are skeptical.

"It's 3,200 feet from homes, 3,000 feet from the Aurora Reservoir, which is drinking water for 400,000 people," he said. "If we have an incident like happened earlier this year in Galeton, where a well sprayed for four days, 80,000 gallons of benzene and other crap as much as eight miles away- if anything like that happens, we have a physician in the group that calculated that if five gallons of benzene hits the reservoir, all the water is gone: 13 billion gallons, poof!"

The hearing will be on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 5 p.m. inside the Bonnie Blues Event Venue in Elizabeth.

In a statement Aurora Water says, "While we are committed to doing everything reasonably possible to prevent contaminants from entering our water supplies, we also have robust safeguards in place to protect public health should an incident occur. Our Binney Water Purification Facility, which treats water from Aurora Reservoir, uses advanced treatment processes - including granular activated carbon (GAC) - that are highly effective at removing substances such as benzene. Because of the way GAC works, removing benzene from Aurora Reservoir water would likely have little impact on our treatment costs, especially given the ability to pursue damages from responsible parties. In addition, water can be routed to our other two treatment facilities without passing through Aurora Reservoir, providing further flexibility and protection for our drinking water system."