Broomfield Homeowners Sue To Stop 'Forced Pool' Oil Drilling

BROOMFIELD, CO – By Lars Gesing forThe Colorado Independent. A group of Broomfield homeowners on Wednesday filed a lawsuit that challenges the nearly century-old practice that allows oil and gas companies to drill under their property using “forced pooling.”

Forced pooling gives oil and gas companies the right to drill — without property owners’ consent — as long as the company makes a “reasonable” offer and at least one homeowner signs the lease.

With that sole thumbs up, the company can then ask the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state body regulating the industry, to “pool in” the remaining land — over the objections of other owners. More than half the states in the country have some variation of this law, which originated in the 1930s as a way to insure that a property owner who didn’t want oil and gas rigs on his property could not deprive his neighbor of the right to develop them.

Once the pooling happens, non-consenting property owners have fairly little recourse. By refusing to sign the forced-pool lease, homeowners can be punished: they receive a limited royalty and are required to pay up to three times what consenting owners have to shell out to cover parts of the fracking project.

The lawsuit was initiated by the Wildgrass Oil and Gas Committee, a group of anti-fracking activists out of Broomfield. It represents more than 900 local residents who WOGC says were forcibly pooled into one parcel, according to a permit application that Extraction Oil & Gas filed with the COGCC.

Extraction Oil & Gas officials did not respond to a request for comment from The Independent.
But the Colorado Oil and Gas Association said the practice has long legal precedent and that land owners have ample opportunity to decide if they want to allow drilling.

“Pooling has not only stood on sound legal footing for nearly a century, but it is a critical step in energy development that now requires detailed communication among mineral right owners well before permits are ever filed,” said Dan Haley, president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, in a statement.

The Broomfield homeowners argue in their lawsuit that the practice of forced pooling is unconstitutional as it violates “the privileges and immunities clause of the United States Constitution because it grants exclusive privileges to private gas and oil operators and injures Wildgrass owners.”

Jean Lim is the WOGC co-chair. Her half-acre of land in a densely populated residential area is part of Extraction’s development site.

“We were very surprised to say the least that in the United States, our property rights could be taken from us by the state of Colorado without our consent, really,” Lim said.

READ MORE at The Colorado Independent

The Wilgrass Subdivision in Broomfield. (Photo by Ted Wood/The Story Group)