VOLUME 35 | ISSUE 23
WEEK OF JUNE 8, 2023
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PARADE SHENANIGANS
Plugging orphaned oil wells County, Hickenlooper discuss sealing abandoned drilling sites
• Vestas to lay off 200 employees •27J Schools moves online-only Dec. 1
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BUSINESS
Beyond the rusting rigs and the pumps and tanks littered around the site, an abandoned oil well is pretty much indistinguishable from a working site. It’s what exists under that equipment that has county officials concerned. “Every oilfield looks different,” Adams County Commissioner Lynn Baca said May 25 standing at an orphaned well site about 11 miles due east from Brighton’s Barr Lake. “This particular one has some outbuildings and it can have lines in the ground. So mitigating that, cleaning it up, we estimate it will take about $150,000 per well to do that. So with 304 abandoned wells in Adams County, we can’t do that. It’s not fair to make the taxpayers carry that burden.” Adams County hosted a tour on May 25 of the well site in an unincorporated part of the county. Called the Greenmeier #9-30 site, it features a rusting wellhead and pump jack connected to nearby production equipment and four tanks via a series of underground pipes and flowlines. U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper, an advocate of capping and clearing those abandoned sites, was the guest of honor as county officials joined with industry experts to demonstrate the steps they must
LOCAL OBITUARIES LEGALS CLASSIFIED
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
LOCAL
BY SCOTT TAYLOR STAYLOR@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Arvada’s Gary Carnes mugs for a shot May 29 at Commerce City’s Memorial Day Parade. See more photos on page 7.
BRIEFS: PAGE 2 | OBITUARIES: PAGE 4 | CLASSIFIEDS: PAGE 9 | LEGAL: PAGE 11
SCOTT TAYLOR
SEE OIL WELLS, P5
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