The City Council in Commerce City is scheduled to hold a long-awaited vote Monday on how the city regulates fracking — horizontal oil drilling — instead of forbidding the process altogether as originally considered.

The proposed rules will create another level of regulation by requiring individual agreements that the city will negotiate with each company to specify details of each operation’s impacts.

Certain elements that will be considered in the so-called “extraction agreements” — such as noise-mitigation plans, water-quality-control measures, restricted hours of operation and permitted lighting — were thought by some to be an appropriate overreaching by city government.

“Although we can’t control what goes down the hole, we wanted to have as much control as we can on the impacts of the operations,” said Councilman Jim Benson. “I think we handled this in a way that pushes the limits of state preemption without crossing the line.

“I think it should be an example to the state, maybe for the country,” he said.

Many local governments in northern Colorado also have been dealing with trying to control fracking operations on their land.

Last month, Longmont tabled a vote on rule changes and extended a moratorium to have more time to consider other options, including partnerships and surface-use agreements.

The conversation over fracking in Commerce City began in December after Hillcorp Energy applied for a permit to attempt fracking at a drill site near the intersection of East 96th Avenue and Tower Road.

Critics fear that fracking — the process by which water and chemicals are pumped into the ground to extract oil — harms the environment. Backers of the new technology point out that the process has allowed for new oil exploration.

Dan Stapleton, who was a member of the original task force set up to propose new rules — and a neighbor of Hillcorp’s drilling site who first raised concerns — said the rules don’t go far enough, but he still thinks his voice has been heard.

“We wouldn’t even be at this point, they wouldn’t have even revised the land code, if it weren’t for us raising our concerns,” Stapleton said. “But they put a lot of it in as voluntary — part of the extraction agreements — so we won’t know until the first driller comes forward and drafts an agreement. Then we’ll see how successful it is.”

Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com