High-occupancy buildings are filled with people who spend almost the entirety of each day in those buildings, usually going outdoors to get into their cars and head home.

Schools aren’t like that. Students spend significant portions of their days on the playgrounds and fields around schools — for P.E. and recess, and for athletic practices.

That fact supports House Bill 1256, Democratic Rep. Mike Foote’s effort to extend the current 1,000-foot setback for oil and gas operations from the state’s school buildings to the school property lines.

Fields that surround schools can extend hundreds of feet beyond the edge of a building. Take Mead High School for instance, where tennis courts are up to 400 feet from the school building, and baseball fields extend more than 1,200 feet from the building. At Roosevelt High School in Johnstown, fields extend more than 600 feet north of the school. So students using those fields and facilities can find themselves close to oil and gas facilities that meet current state guidelines.

Read more at The Loveland Reporter-Herald.