The Erie Town Council on Tuesday night is expected to vote on whether to repeal the ordinance connected to its now-scrubbed mineral rights sale with SM Energy, after the oil and gas operator notified the town last week that it has opted not to continue the deal.
The council had approved the ordinance in late June to sell some town-owned mineral rights, an agreement that would have allowed SM Energy to access those minerals from its planned Draco Pad just outside the town.
Erie residents who opposed the SM Energy deal last month gathered enough signatures to put the issue up to voters. If the Town Council votes to repeal the ordinance this week, it would close that petition process.
Repealing the ordinance would also allow the town to act as a party of interest in any upcoming hearings on the Draco Pad with the state Energy and Carbon Management Commission, according to town spokesperson Gabi Rae.
SM Energy can continue forward with drilling Draco, even without the access to the town’s mineral rights that the deal would have provided. But without the mineral rights deal, under recently enacted state law, SM Energy will now have to redraw its drilling plan to avoid those mineral rights — which amount to 2.7% of the total Draco drilling area.
“SM Energy is obligated not to touch them,” Erie Mayor Andrew Moore said last week.
Allowing Erie to become a party in the state commission’s hearings, he added, would “ensure that our minerals are not produced.”
“It gives us the right to participate if for any reason — and I don’t even know what those reasons may be, but for whatever reason — we have a seat at the table, if something does come up that impacts our minerals,” Moore said.
Repealing the ordinance is, ultimately, also a matter of housekeeping, according to Rae.
“Ordinances have to be approved and repealed by Council,” she said in an email. “That is outlined in the Town Charter. This is how communities end up with really old, random laws on the books… because they were things the elected body just never repealed.”