If You Go: Oil, gas regulations What: Boulder County commissioners will hold a public hearing on proposed updates to the county’s Land Use Code regulations about oil and gas development in unincorporated parts of the county When: 12 p.m. Tuesday Where: Third-floor hearing room, Boulder County Courthouse, 1325 Pearl St., Boulder Info: Commissioners are scheduled to take action on a final version of the new regulations at 11 a.m. Thursday. That meeting will also be in their third-floor Courthouse hearing room and will be open to the public, but no further testimony will be taken. The proposed regulations, and other information about Boulder County’s oil and gas development moratoriums and policies, can be viewed at bit.ly/1UUQPdi

Boulder County commissioners will hold a Tuesday public hearing and are set to take action Thursday on proposed oil and gas regulations that would take effect once the moratorium on processing applications for oil and gas development expires.

Boulder County’s current moratorium — the latest in a series of moratoriums the county originally imposed in February 2012 — will end at the close of business on Friday.

However, the county Planning Commission has recommended that the Board of County Commissioners extend the current moratorium for up to five more years to craft any additional regulations needed to address concerns about the public-health impacts of hydraulic fracturing, the process of injecting a mixture of sand, water and chemicals to free up underground oil and gas deposits.

Supporters and critics of the proposed updates to Boulder County’s oil and gas development requirements, as well as proponents and foes of any extension of the current moratorium, will get the opportunity to present their cases at Tuesday’s hearing.

The county’s Land Use Department and County Attorney’s Office have recommended that the county commissioners proceed, after Tuesday’s hearing, to take formal action Thursday to adopt new regulations — including any changes the commissioners themselves want made to the version of those rules that the planning panel endorsed on Oct. 27.

However, Land Use staffers and the County Attorney’s Office also have recommended that the Board of County Commissioners not extend the current moratorium.

The county staff said in a memo for Tuesday’s hearing that — in light of the Colorado Supreme Court written rulings that ended Longmont’s voter-approved fracking ban and Fort Collins- voter-approved fracking moratorium — the extended moratorium recommended by the Planning Commission “would be unlikely to withstand a legal challenge.”

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association, which successfully sued Fort Collins and Longmont to overturn their fracking prohibitions, has written Boulder County’s Commissioners that “It is COGA’s firm position that any effort at imposing a moratorium on hydraulic fracking in Boulder is plainly illegal under the Fort Collins decision …”

Oil and Gas Association president Dan Haley said in that Nov. 7 letter that such an extended Boulder County fracking moratorium would conflict with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s “extensive regulatory regime explicitly permitting the practice of hydraulic fracturing.”

Boulder County officials have also received letters from a number of residents calling for either a continuation of the current moratorium or for converting it to a permanent fracking ban.

“The Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling may make you think your hands are tied,” Boulder resident Susan Secord wrote commissioners on Nov. 4. “However, the Court did not have the latest scientific information about the serious health impacts of fracking when making its decision.

“I urge you to take a new stand against fracking in our community and to vote for a new fracking moratorium,” Secord said.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association and the Colorado Petroleum Council have objected that some of the local regulations the county is considering would conflict with, and be preempted by, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s regulatory authority and that state agency’s existing rules.

Among COGA’s concerns, Haley wrote, are that the proposed regulations “illegally give the county the ability to mandate siting of oil and gas location” and “include bonding require bonding requirements that are permitted under current Colorado law and that overlap with state agency bonding requirements.”

But some residents have said the proposed rules don’t go far enough.

Boulder landscape architect Tom Altgelt, for example, sad in a Wednesday email that Boulder County should “require the fracking companies to open their books. This will give you the assurance that they are solvent and can take responsibility for any cleanup needed.”

Altgelt said the county should also require companies “to outline and implement a plan for the disposal of the fracking waste that does not do environmental damage to our county. In other counties, they just dump it into agricultural fields or use it for dust mitigation. We must ensure this does not happen here.”

Elise Jones, chairwoman of the Board of County Commissioners, said on Friday that the board “will take into account” the county staff’s and Planning Commission members’ recommendations about the proposed oil and gas regulations —and the status of the moratorium — as well as “all the feedback we’ve gotten to date” and testimony at Tuesday’s public hearing.

Commissioners will “carefully and thoughtfully deliberate” how to proceed on Thursday, the date they’ve set for formally adopting new regulations, Jones said.

John Fryar: 303-684-5211, jfryar@times-call.com or twitter.com/jfryartc