Someone with a dark sense of humor gave the oil and gas mergers of Bonanza Creek Energy, HighPoint Resources, Extraction Oil and Gas and Crestone Peak Resources the name “Civitas.”

“Civitas” has Latin origins. It means “community of citizens, citizenship.” According to the famed Roman orator and rhetorician Cicero, “civitates” (plural of civitas) were the ”social bodies of the ‘cives’, or citizens united by law” in the ancient Roman empire.

In the current oil and gas empire of the Denver-Julesburg Basin, Civitas Resources rules in a way residents of east Arapahoe County and Aurora deem un-civitas in manner. Civitas seeks permits for 155 oil and gas wells on 32,000 acres of Colorado State Land Board property near the Lowry Landfill Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site, near Aurora Reservoir (that serves up water for about 400,000 Aurora metro area residents) and near residential subdivisions. The permits are up for hearings this week at the Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC). Julie Murphy, ECMC director, recommends the commission grants the permits rather like the British Raj directing resources in colonial India.

Civitas will drill under the Aurora reservoir and close to the landfill. Its drilling models envision 7,500-foot vertical holes that then make hard horizontal turns for a couple of miles in different directions. Civitas asserts the holes are deep enough and the barriers sturdy enough any accidents, however unlikely, will not cause problems to ground water.

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Residents living close to the State Land Board property lack confidence in the plan. Hundreds of members of Save the Aurora Reservoir (STAR) object. They are taking their case to the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) in hopes the commission will apply the strictures of Senate Bill 19-181 to protect human health and the environment.

In actuality, the state has no idea whether any new drilling is safe as it has yet to perform a cumulative impact analysis required by SB19-181 of the many sources of pollution along the Front Range. Hearings on cumulative pollution-impact rules won’t occur until later this year. The state does know summer ozone levels and other air quality contaminants are dangerous to many people now when Denver too often looks like New Delhi on a bad smog day.

Additional worries for Aurora and Arapahoe County residents are the dubious financial histories of Civitas’s core companies. Civitas was formed by mergers of Bonanza Creek Energy, Extraction Oil and Gas and Crestone Peak Resources. HighPoint Resources was then added. Bonanza Creek claimed bankruptcy in 2016 and Extraction entered bankruptcy based on $1.7 billion in long-term debt in 2020. HighPoint Resources filed for bankruptcy based on $765 million in debt in 2021 as part of its consolidation into Civitas. The bankruptcies cleared debt to launch Civitas but present questions as to long-term good judgment.

The four companies and their earlier versions have also been fined for almost 100 environmental penalty violations since 2007, with Crestone’s three penalties in 2024 already reaching $232,000.

Extraction also has a bad-actor reputation as it was fined twice for a total of $1.35 million in 2020 and 2021 for grabbing product from federal land without permission or permits. In 2018 Extraction proposed a massive project approved by the ECMC that involved Boulder County open space and mineral rights. According to Boulder County, the Blue Paintbrush project (who comes up with the names?) contained 64% of mineral acres not subject to any oil and gas leases. Boulder County rejected Extraction’s application in order to preserve its open-space mission and to follow its climate change policies. This latest project now under Civitas is deja vu, only for Aurora and Arapahoe County residents.

According to Director Murphy, the Lowry Ranch’s Comprehensive Area Plan “complies with all applicable requirements of the Commission’s rules.” The plan envisions these possibilities: low-polluting engines; electrified operations and drilling; and pipes to move liquids in and out of the site. As far as electrified operations, Xcel Energy must provide infrastructure that hasn’t been cinched down. There will be truck traffic and enough environmental interruption to possibly limit drilling during certain times to help wildlife, but that’s more hope than certainty.

Then there are the larger issues of producing fossil fuels when the planet has had its hottest days this summer since temperature measurements have occurred. The northern Front Range has exceeded ozone pollution measures many days due to wildfires, traffic and industrial activities including oil and gas drilling.

Civitas claims it’s a “sustainable energy producer in the D-J basin.” Civitas further states the following: “caring for our environment, our employees, and our communities is critical to our role as an energy producer.”

As with all fossil fuel energy producers, Civitas needs to continuously drill to produce profits. Chris Doyle, chief executive of Civitas, expects $1.8 billion in free cash flow in 2024 that will “enhance our industry leading shareholder program, which has delivered $1.3 billion to shareholders” since 2023. Civitas’s Lowry Ranch play is expected to extend this profitability at the expense of nearby citizens who object to noise, pollution emissions, water waste, dirt and dust, industrial traffic, water and air contaminants and probable deleterious impacts on wildlife that currently thrive throughout the property, among numerous other issues.

Paula Noonan owns Colorado Capitol Watch, the state’s premier legislature tracking platform.