BLM will offer parcels near Aurora Reservoir for oil and gas drilling
Planned oil and gas development near the Aurora Reservoir — which has been vigorously opposed by local residents — is poised to grow as the federal government will auction off 600 acres of mineral leases west of the reservoir.
In its Sept. 8 auction, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management is offering two parcels covering 600 acres adjacent to Colorado State Land Board property where Crestone Peak has been approved to develop 108 oil and gas wells.
Crestone Peak Resources, a subsidiary of the SM Energy Company, received approval from the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission in July 2024, for a comprehensive drilling plan covering about 32,000 acres on the state’s Lowry Ranch.
The ECMC in April approved the first drilling pad in the comprehensive plan, the State Sunlight-Long drill pad, despite a show of opposition from the community.
A grassroots group — Save the Aurora Reservoir, or STAR — hired an attorney and expert witnesses to appear before the ECMC. The fight over the pad lasted eight months and culminated in a series of seven hearings. The commission approved the pad on a 3-2 vote.
“STAR believes, as do most Americans, that our public lands are for the benefit of the public NOT for corporations to pillage for profit,” the group said in a statement. Friday
“Many of the parcels being leased under this version of the BLM are concerning and additive to the problems that Colorado is already seeing from rampant oil and gas development,” STAR said.
The BLM in its environmental assessment said it assumes the federal wells would be developed from Crestone’s still-to-be approved State Blanca West well pad planned to the northeast of the parcels.
The pad could accommodate eight horizontal wells extending 3 miles laterally on to federal land. The additional development would add about 8.5 acres of surface disturbance to the 21.5-acre State Blanca West pad, plus 3 acres of roads.
To reduce the impact of drilling, the BLM assessment cited the requirements and best management practices approved by the ECMC including electric drilling rigs, low-odor drilling rigs, closed-loop fluid systems, full-wrap sound walls and a vapor recovery system.
“Rather than acknowledge that some places are inappropriate for drilling — like the land around the Aurora reservoir, which provides drinking water to hundreds of thousands of people — the BLM is planning to lease land on the reservoir’s edge for drilling,” the Center for Western Priorities said in a statement.
“Aurora residents have spent two years fighting to keep an oil field away from their water supply and their neighborhoods, and the Trump administration still isn’t listening,” the center said.
The Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act requires Colorado and eight other oil-producing states from Oklahoma to Alaska to hold quarterly oil and gas lease auctions. Leases run for 10 years.
Oil and gas companies or individuals nominate parcels for auction and under the act at least 50% of those parcels must be put up for sale in the next auction and all parcels offered within 18 months.
The September auction also includes 3,438 acres in Weld County on or near the Pawnee National Grassland.