The Loveland City Council tabled an item of business regarding a new ordinance updating oil and gas regulations during Tuesday’s regular council meeting and moved in a unanimous vote to extend the existing moratorium for another six months.

The city’s current moratorium was set to expire Sept. 1, but City Councilman Dana Foley moved to extend the moratorium due to city staff receiving new feedback on the first draft of the ordinance. Foley also said council members did not have enough information and pointed to a specific standard document that was not included in an agenda packet.

City staff received a letter from the American Petroleum Institute (API) a day before the council meeting, according to city communications director Kim Overholt.

The letter said the first draft of the ordinance the city gave them for feedback has several provisions that either duplicate state regulations or supersede the jurisdiction of state regulatory agencies.

“The regulation must be both reasonable and necessary. Equally important, actions must be supported by substantial evidence. We note that many of the recommendations put forth by the city are duplicates of efforts at the state level,” Alejandra Major, deputy director of API Colorado, said in the letter.

Those provisions in the regulation in question from API, totaling 13, ranged from regulating pipelines to permit expiring to how far back oil and gas development can be from housing development units.

Provisions in the first draft of the ordinance say the development cannot be less than 1,000 feet from residential units, but the API said the rules should be in line with the Colorado Energy & Carbon Management Commission’s 500-foot ordinance.

The difference in setbacks from the development is proof of the different wishes from the municipal council. Mayor Jackie Marsh and Councilor Laura Light-Kovacs have called for stricter regulations on the industry, while Councilors Steve Olson and Foley have called for less restrictive measures.

Loveland City Manager Rod Wensing agreed with the decision to extend the moratorium during the City Council meeting.

“When it comes to this topic, because it’s a council-driven moratorium if you will, staff is here to support that moratorium… It’s really up to the council if you want to expand this more, have more conversations, have more community conversations . The staff is here to support you,” Wensing said.

The city’s development services director, Brett Limbaugh, also agreed with the decision to extend the moratorium and tabled the planned business item during Tuesday’s meeting.

“We have a draft regulation available tonight for you to review, but we just received comments from industry experts this week and I’d like to take the opportunity to incorporate those into the regulation if we see fit, and maybe give you back a more polished document,” Limbaugh said.

Council members said they appreciated Limbaugh’s honesty, but concerns about which side of the table is more represented in the update process rang before they voted on the motion.

Olson and Samson expressed similar concerns as they have in the past, the oil and gas industry has not been represented during the ordinance update process. Olson suggested that oil and gas industry representatives make presentations at future council meetings to “have both sides of the table.”

Light-Kovacs agreed with Olson and Samson but also said the other side needs to be equally represented.

“I agree, we should have all sides of the table and that should include some (NGOs) for environmental and social justice. So if we’re going to include the industry, let’s include these people too. That way we get the whole picture , we hear from different perspectives and so we can choose the best way forward for Loveland, says Light-Kovacs.

Overholt was part of the city staff working on the bylaw update and said the process is now back to seeking more input from the public and its own stakeholders.

She said staff are doing their best to gather input from a range of stakeholders, but she said a crowdsourcing platform used to connect with key environmental stakeholders was not working properly.

“We couldn’t directly get in touch with these people, we got all these emails back. There was no way to communicate with people on the environmental side to invite them after the initial input to come back and give more feedback,” said Overholt .

Overholt did not predict when the ordinance would come back before the City Council, but she assured that revisions to the ordinance will be full of balanced input.

“We have to make sure it’s balanced when we gather input,” Overholt says. “We’re trying to refrain from bias and targeting, so what we do is look at who are all the known stakeholders, including residents, so that’s the process we’re going to follow.”

To view the draft regulation and to also provide feedback, visit lovgov.org/oilandgas.

Originally published: August 9, 2024 at 16.28