Denver City Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer wants new oil and gas drilling projects within the city to be prohibited unless approved by voters.

Sawyer’s proposal, citing a sweeping and controversial industry reform bill passed by state lawmakers earlier this year, would require a change to the city’s charter via voter referendum, Sawyer said.

It’s mostly a symbolic gesture, Sawyer acknowledges, but certainly a shot across the industry’s bow.

“We are Denver. We shouldn’t be extracting oil and gas within our city limits,” Sawyer said. “I’ve seen the data. The people in the city and county of Denver are not interested in being in the oil and gas business.”

Senate Bill 181, signed into law in April, gives local governments authority to regulate oil and gas activity within their borders. Adams County was the first Colorado community to enact its own rules, doubling the state-mandated distance between new wells and homes in September.

Currently, 63 oil and gas wells sit within the 53 square miles around the Denver International Airport, but they are not producing, Sawyer said.

She acknowledged there isn’t a strong demand for new wells in Denver at the moment but said the proposal would empower Denver residents — rather than the council or Mayor Michael Hancock — to determine whether to allow new wells, Sawyer said.

Voter referendums would more than likely work against any new wells, said Anne Lee Foster, spokesperson for the anti-fracking group Colorado Rising. The group backed Proposition 112, a 2018 statewide initiative to dramatically increase oil and gas drilling setbacks from homes.

While the measure failed statewide, nearly 59% of voters in Denver favored it. So it’s likely Denver voters would shoot down any newly proposed wells, Foster said calling any further extraction detrimental to the city’s public health and safety.

Representatives of The Colorado Petroleum Council, which opposed the sweeping statewide industry reform, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state’s regulating agency, could not immediately be reached for comment.

Sawyer said she wants the proposal, which would require a change to the city’s charter, on Denver’s November 2020 ballot, but she will be working with interested parties to refine it before bringing it to the City Council.

This story has been updated to reflect that Sawyer’s proposal is for a referendum to decide whether any new drilling should be allowed.