HomeMy WebLinkAbout20241078.tiffINVENTORY OF ITEMS FOR CONSIDERATION
Applicant Liberty Power Innovations LLC
Case Number USR23-0042
Submitted or Prepared
Prior to
Hearing
At
Hearing
1 Letter from Virtus and Amy Banowitz dated 1/22/2024
X
I hereby certify that the items identified herein were submitted to the Department of Planning Services at
or prior to the scheduled Planning Commissioners hearing.
Chris Gathman, Planner III
January 22, 2024
Weld County Planning Services
1402 N. 17th Avenue
Greeley, CO 80632
RE: Case # USR23-0042
To Whom It May Concern:
We are writing this letter to express our concerns regarding the proposed Oil and Gas Support
Facility (CNG) Station in the A Zone District.
First, we would like to give you some background information for why this is so personal to us
and the ongoing battle we have had with the oil and gas industry over the past 10 years. When
we first purchased our property back in 1999, there was nothing to the north and east of us
except a big beautiful rolling grassy hill. We purchased land out in the country to escape the
noise and concrete jungle of city and industrial life. When we first started building our dream
home, there was not an oil facility anywhere in sight. There were only a few random oil battery
tanks. For nearly 14 years, we enjoyed the peace and quiet and beautiful views country life has
to offer. However, we now live in the middle of a gas and oil industrial park.
In 2012-13, we decided to start an event center business using an existing building on our
property that had been used as a shop for our construction business. We started the permitting
process and had to jump through so many hoops, including personally notifying every neighbor
withing a %z mile in all directions of our property. This process took 8 months to finally get
approval for us to just begin the renovations on our building and took another year before we
received our C.O. to operate.
Imagine our surprise, when the DCP O'Connor 1 plant started breaking ground with only a few
people being notified that were within 500 feet of the entrance, which was on the east side.
Basically, everyone within a half mile or less of the actual facility had not been notified and had
no idea that it was even going in until we saw ground breaking. Upon completion of the facility
and on the first day that they fired up everything, we thought we were having an earthquake.
The pictures on our walls rattled for 2 hours and the tallest flare looked like the Olympic torch.
If the continuous vibrations and noise from the compressors weren't bad enough, we had to
deal with excessive light pollution. They had that facility so lit up that we could have all our
lights off in our bedroom at night and actually be able to read a book while sitting in bed. It
didn't take long before the neighbors all got together and set up a meeting with the Weld
County Commissioners. We all wanted to know how it was even possible for something this
large in scale to be allowed to proceed with very few people being notified and seemingly few
requirements compared to what it took us in order to operate our little event center. DCP was
EXHIBIT
apparently required to notify its intentions to build this facility in a local paper. They chose to
put the notification in the Ft. Lupton newspaper. No one in Kersey or LaSalle would subscribe to
the Ft. Lupton paper. It quickly became apparent that Big Gas and Oil know all the loopholes to
jump through and when it comes to big money, the county will allow just about anything.
At the first neighborhood meeting with Barbara Kirkmeyer and DCP representatives in
attendance, we felt like we got very little sympathy for what we were all experiencing. Some of
the vibrations were so severe that it caused cracks in many of the neighbor's drywall and the
constant humming noise disrupted many of our sleep and we now deal with noise day and night
from the facility itself and all the extra truck traffic that it brings. We will say, after many hours
of calls and meetings with various people we were able to get DCP to finally deal with the
lighting and that has since been way better. Another thing discussed in our initial meeting with
DCP was that they said the O'Connor plant would never be expanded. That proved to be a lie.
A few short years later, they again applied for a permit to expand the O'Connor plant to more
than double its initial size. Again, all the neighbors rallied and we all went to a hearing before
the Weld County Board of Commissioners where we all gave our impact statements and
demanded that DCP be required to mitigate for visual and noise issues on the original plant and
also offer compensation to the neighbors to help with mitigation on their personal properties.
before allowing them to expand.
After much stress and frustration of dealing with all involved for months, we finally felt like we
had a small victory! After the first phase of the O'Connor plant had been built, another similar
facility was built down south in Commissioner Kirkmeyer's backyard. All of a sudden, she had a
little more sympathy for everything we had been going through. Because of her position on the
Board, she was able to make that facility have to build a wall all the way around it to mitigate
the noise and hide all the ugly pipes and structures. Therefore, the O'Connor 1 plant had to do
the same as part of the permitting agreement to expand. Having the wall has definitely cut
down on the noise as well as them putting the compressors in insulated structures. DCP has
been a fairly good neighbor, but it didn't happen without us fighting for it.
This hasn't just affected our ability to be happy and enjoy living on our property in what should
be a quiet countryside, but it has now affected our property value and that of our neighbors,
but even more importantly, it has affected our livelihood with operating our event center.
Because of the initial ugliness of the O'Connor facility, we had the expense of putting up our
own wall to create an enclosed courtyard area for our outdoor wedding ceremonies to help
with the noise and just so no one had to look at the ugly pipes and towers. We know we have
lost business because there are other venues that are in the country setting that don't have ugly
views of oil and gas facilities that people would rather go to.
Not only did we have to deal with DCP's big facility destroying our beautiful views of nature and
serenity, but at the end of 2018, PDC notified us of their intent to move in a drilling rig to drill 10
horizontal wells and to construct all production facilities necessary to produce oil and gas just to
the north of us. Again, we had little time, opportunity or power to stop this. So, now we are
surrounded on three sides if you include the big tank battery to the west of us across County
Road 49. We again had to go through the stressful process of requesting compensation to help
us mitigate on our side to try and block the view of ugly metal structures. Unfortunately, for us,
even if we get compensation to grow trees, we have the long-term and ongoing expense of
water to keep everything alive. We don't have a working well on our property to keep
everything watered. We have to pay for CWCWD water. That gets expensive!
So, here we are again. Facing more ugly oil and gas structures directly to the east of us and
even closer in proximity than the DCP plant. This will again, further the devaluation of our
property and have negative impact on our event center business as no one wants to have their
wedding in the middle of an oil and gas industrial park. If someone is having an outdoor
ceremony, it will be interrupted by the loud noises associated with trucks when they are
disconnecting from the tanks. The extra truck traffic that this will bring on County Road 50 will
also add to the noise we have to hear personally and those of our clients during their events.
We have no doubt that our complaints and concerns will in any way prevent Liberty Power
Innovations, LLC from receiving the go ahead to proceed with their plans. Our only hope is that
we can affect the requirements for visual and noise mitigation. Here is the list of our concerns
and how we would like to see them mitigated.
1. We will have more ugly gas/oil structures to look at. On the Planning Questionnaire on
#22, the explanation for how this proposed facility is consistent with the intent of the
zone district stated that the location of the site will also blend with the DCP Lucern 2
Plant that is on the parcel, so it will also not be a considerable eyesore. Question #5
stated from a visual standpoint, this facility will blend in well with existing infrastructure.
Seriously? How many of the people in charge of making this decision would buy a home
next to all this ugliness and consider it a beautiful view to look at and would enjoy doing
so every day? If this facility is allowed to proceed, it needs to comply with the same
requirements that DCP had to do for mitigation that included the wall to hide all the
pipes and most the structures and to put some berms with trees to distract from the
actually facility itself, and not just a chain link fence that was indicated in Question #17.
This would also help with noise.
2. This will increase truck traffic and noise associated with increased truck traffic going past
our home and event center 24/7 which was indicated on the Planning Questionnaire #6.
We propose that truck traffic be routed around to go down County Road 51 and then
come up County Road 50 from the east to their entrance.
3. Future expansion is another big concern. What will prevent you or someone else from
putting something on the strip of land directly across the ditch to the north of us or even
further west of your proposed facility? We propose, since you have such a great
relationship with the landowner as indicated in Question #22, that you purchase and
deed us that piece of property so that we have the ability to mitigate on behalf of
ourselves with landscaping.
4. Maintaining current and future landscaping is expensive due to the increasing cost of
and limited water supply. We already have a difficult time keeping up with our existing
landscaping that we have planted over the last 10 years to help mitigate for screening of
the oil/gas facilities. We propose that you and Weld County work together to fix our
existing well so that we have adequate water supply to maintain current and future
landscaping for mitigation.
5. The previous 4 concerns ultimately affect our property values and the income potential
of our event center. We thought that someday we could pass the business onto our son
and his wife, but now we aren't sure that it will even provide an adequate amount of
income to live on as oil and gas continues to build and expand all around us. It has also
decreased and will continue to decrease the value of our children's inheritance that we
have worked so hard for the last 25 years to build. We propose that you, along with DCP
and even PDC, combine your resources and buy us out at fair market value so that you
all can continue to expand and do whatever you want with no resistance or interference
from us and we can move to where we can enjoy our views again.
We hope you take our concerns seriously and realize the impact that your company and
industry can have on people who have been living for years in their homes prior to these oil and
gas facilities being built in their back or front yards.
Respectfully,
Virtus and Amy Banowetz
24081 CR 50
LaSalle, CO 80645
970-518-2925
Hello