Home Care In Erie, CO

FORT COLLINS - Grit, courage and perseverance: three words that you can use to describe Blake Barnett’s performance in his final game for Erie High School.

Barnett had one of his best games of the season Saturday afternoon at Colorado State University’s Canvas Stadium. He led Erie in their 20-6 victory over Palmer Ridge High School in the Colorado High School Activities Association 4A championship game.

The big kicker: most of Barnett’s production came in the first half.

Late in the third quarter, he injured his ankle, and while he got it taped up, it was clear that when he was hopping on one leg 33 yards out of the endzone trying to catch up with his team after Braylon Toliver’s touchdown run, that he wasn’t even close to being 100%.

“I think it was just justice that it happened the way it did,” coach Jeff Giger said. “That he ended up blowing his ankle and he couldn’t quite go out and be him, but everybody else stepped up and did their part and then he’s cheering them on and counting on them, that’s this group.”

While Barnett does get a lot of the accolades and recognition for his two-way play, including: throwing for 151 yards, rushing for another 77 and adding in two touchdowns and intercepting a pass during his time on defense, the game is still about which 11 players can outplay the other side.

Regardless of his health, Barnett was going to be a part of those 11 guys.

“Our defense played their game,” Barnett said. “I don't think there was anything that was going to stop me from keeping playing.”

Taking over when Barnett got hurt was Toliver. After Derek Hester found Jimmer Weir in the endzone, the Tigers were staring the dangers of a comeback right in the eyes with the game sitting at just 13-6 with 11 minutes left to play in the fourth quarter.

Barnett was so much of the Tigers’ offense in the first half that momentum was ready to jump ship when he went down. But Tolliver's 66 yards on only eight carries in the second half kept the momentum with the black and orange.

“Hours of film, hours on the field, limitless,” Tolliver said. “We had this motto of unfinished business and we just knew what we had to do.”

While finally reaching the mountain top, there is no doubt that the journey to raising the trophy was a hard one.

Giger took over the coaching position in 2021. His first season at the helm his team reached the championship game and lost. In 2022, his team reached the semi-finals and lost. However, with Barnett in his senior season, the sun was starting to set and Barnett was ready to ride off into glory.

“You battle for so much and then you just finally do it,” Barnett said. “You can’t compete with anything else.”

Erie’s championship run wasn’t all glorious throughout all of their 14 games. In fact, their season started with a loss.

But starting their season off 0-1 against Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida, more than 1,800 miles away from where it ended, is exactly what they needed.

“Yes, completely and it showed tonight,” Giger said. “So many guys going down and guys have to step in, and that’s what kind of happened early in the year.”

The game in Florida, the hours in the film room and on the field, the non-stop work. All for one final moment atop the mountain.

“It’s just so special to finally get it with my boys,” said Barnett, who was awarded the National Football League Most Outstanding Player award after the game. “We finally got to the top of the mountain top and we finished — I’m so blessed.”

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In downtown Erie, the Erie Food Co-op and Gordon's Butcher and Market will no longer be part of the Flagship City Public Market.

"It was a heartbreaking decision to make," said Erie Food Co-op CEO LeAnna Nieratko. "We really believe in the mission. We really want to be able to provide fresh, affodable food downtown, and so to see this opportunity go away is heartbreaking, and we're just hoping for more in the future."

According to Nieratko, there were a number of factors that led to the mutual agreement with the Erie Downtown Development Corporation to end operations in downtown Erie.

"It was a perfect storm really," said Nieratko. "We had the construction issues, and we also had two back-to-back cooler failures and then the windstorm and the power outage took out a lot of the rest, so that was really the sign that it was time to close up."

For Gordon's owner Kyle Bohrer, the ongoing construction, lack of foot traffic, and a cooler malfunction also led to his decision.

"We had a food loss," said Bohrer. "We lost all of our inventory from a malfunction over Christmas, and I think it gave us a moment just to step back and say, pump the brakes, and re-evaluate and take a look at what we want to do in the future."

Bohrer will now focus on his Gordon's location on Peach Street, along with Firestone Restaurant.Bohrer also plans to expand.

"We have a west side location," said Bohrer. "We bought the land out on W.26th and Millfair, so we're hoping to do a location out there some day. The interest rate environment right now, is kind of keeping the shovels out of the ground."

Meanwhile, Nieratko is focusing on the Erie Food Co-op's main location on W. 26th Street.

"Around here, we recently lost a supermarket that was on 26th street, and we're also losing a lot of drug stores," said Nieratko. "We know we're a community resource and we're just focusing on that we have whatever people need in this location."

Both Nieratko and Bohrer hope to see the public market succeed, moving forward.

"Everybody keep positive," said Bohrer. "I think sometimes it's easy to go down a negative path with some of this stuff. I know when I read the (Facebook) comments and everything like that, we're all Erieites and I think everyone has to understand that we're all working for this thing to work."

Drew Whiting of the EDDC tells Erie News Now that the organization is working hard to address the food desert in downtown Erie and that the public market will not be idle for very long.

According to Whiting, the EDDC is committed to re-opening a grocery option in downtown Erie, and they are making progress on identifying a partner.

Whiting says that it will not become another Dollar General, and that economic development efforts will universally fail without sustained private and public support.

By offering residents these tools it is the groups hope that it will help reduce their environmental footprint through water conservation and reduced fertilizer use.

Credit: Bianca - stock.adobe.com

ERIE COUNTY, N.Y. — Erie County is teaming up with the Western New York Stormwater Coalition to offer households the opportunity to purchase both rain barrels and compost bins.

By offering residents these tools it is the groups hope that it will help reduce their environmental footprint through water conservation and reduced fertilizer use.

Erie County municipalities of Cheektowaga, Grand Island, the City of Tonawanda, Kenmore, and Sloan are eligible for 75% off the price of rain barrels only.

The reduced price is also available to households in the Niagara County municipalities of Niagara Falls and Lewiston.

The subsidy is funded by a grant provided by the Environmental Protection Fund as administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

New this year they will also be offering residents a compost bin subsidy via Erie County's solid waste management boards.

The solid waste management boards will work collectively with member municipalities on waste reduction issues that impact all residents in Erie County.

Residents in almost all of Erie County's municipalities are eligible for the special "Composter Kit" which includes the Earth Machine compost bin, a rodent screen and compost turner for the cost of $30.

People who live in a municipality that is not targeted for a subsidy, rain barrels, compost bins and composting accessories are 50%-60% off typical pricing.

"Rain barrels reduce stormwater runoff, which is rainfall that does not soak into the ground and can transport many pollutants to our local waterways. By using harvested rainwater for watering lawns, gardens and potted plants, rain barrels conserve water. As a bonus, the natural nutrients in rainwater make it far better for plants than tap water, which has chlorine and fluoride in it. With a rain barrel, gardeners can also minimize or eliminate their use of chemical fertilizers." according to WNY Stormwater Coalition.

They also mention that "Home composting is a simple way to restore nutrients to soil. The addition of compost enriches soil, stimulates plant growth, and reduces the need for chemical fertilizers. Composting yard trimmings and food scraps has the added benefit of keeping those wastes out of our local landfills."

To learn more visit erie.compostersale.com

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On the edge of Longmont there is an alfalfa field destined to be filled with homes. A school and the city recreation center and museum are close by. Houses flank one side of the parcel. Costco is just to the north. There is just one problem — the black oil bubbling up in the middle of the plot.

The oil and its pungent odor come from an old well plugged and abandoned almost 27 years ago and now buried beneath the surface. Its existence was unknown to the property owner, the Longmont-based Diamond G Concrete Co.

There are nearly 22,000 plugged and abandoned oil and gas wells across nine Front Range counties. Three-quarters are in Weld County, but every county from Douglas to Larimer has some.

“Some wells leak immediately, some are good for 50 or 60 years,” said Anthony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineering professor emeritus, who has studied well integrity. “All plugged wells face the risks of corrosion, degrading cement.”

“They are all ticking time bombs,” Ingraffea said.

Houses platted, but regulators say plugging isn’t a priority

The state Energy and Carbon Management Commission, formerly the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, allows the public to refer potential orphan wells to the commission’s Orphan Well Program for plugging and remediation.

That option had, however, never been exercised until Aug. 24, when Diamond G Concrete asked the commission to plug the well in its alfalfa field.

“This is something we’ve not heard before,” ECMC Chairman Jeff Robbins said.

Diamond G’s attorney David Neslin called it a “unique situation” and a case involving “exceptional circumstances.”

The commission voted unanimously to add Diamond G’s well, Tanaka 1-11, to the approximately 458 wells and 1,147 sites on the state’s orphan well list, but it hardly looks like it is unique or exceptional.

In September, Oakwood Homes, which has housing developments in six Colorado towns and cities, is slated to go before the ECMC to ask it to take over and plug an old well underneath a parcel in Erie it is planning to develop.

It appears that methane has seeped out of an old well on the site and into the soil. The well, William H. Peltier #1 was plugged in 1996 by the now defunct Vessels Oil and Gas Co.

The story of the Tanaka 1-11 and William H. Peltier #1 wells is one of how Colorado’s oil and gas past can weigh on its home building future and a reminder of what may be lurking beneath the surface of the Front Range.

Tanaka 1-11 was drilled to a depth of 6,800 feet by Noarko Resources in 1985. The alfalfa field back then was in unincorporated Boulder County. The well was transferred to the Apex Operating Co. and then to the Longmont-based Meyer Oil Co. in 1990.

Meyer Oil, however, racked up a string of notices of violation and in May 1995, the oil and gas commission revoked the company’s certification to do business.

That December the Tanaka well was plugged and abandoned, with a cast iron bridge plug set at 6,250 feet, and cement plugs set at 580 feet and at the surface. About 6,250 feet of steel casing was pulled out of the well for reuse.

In 1996, Meyer Oil filed for bankruptcy liquidation and in 2011, the ECMC released a $30,000 blanket plugging bond for Tanaka 1-11 and some other wells.

“Meyer Oil Company no longer has well operations in Colorado,” the ECMC said, adding “any fines imposed have been discharged by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of Colorado.”

In 1997, a Diamond G affiliate bought the land with no knowledge of the existence of Tanaka 1-11. The field is zoned for residential-mixed use and has already been platted for development.

It was when one of the developers was doing an assessment this past April that they discovered the bubbling oil and informed Diamond G.

By this point Noarko, Apex Operating, and Meyer Oil were all long gone and so Diamond G turned to the ECMC.

While adding the Tanaka 1-11 well to the Orphan Well Program, the commission balked at designating it for priority plugging, leaving it to staff to determine where it ranks on the program’s risk assessment protocol.

“The state’s orphan well program has significant experience associated with orphan wells around the state and determining the necessary prioritization to ensure protection of public health,” Commissioner John Messner said.

Diamond G’s application was supported by the City of Longmont, the Town of Erie, and Boulder and Adams counties.

“The plugging of the well failed for some reason and the operator who completed that plugging no longer exists, but the state agency that approved that plugging and deemed the site adequately completed does,” Boulder County said in its letter of support. “Only the ECMC has the expertise and a defined funding stream for managing facilities like the well.”

Housing developers don’t have expertise to deal with orphan wells

Colorado began its orphan well program in 1990. It has been financed by fees, fines and bonds levied on the oil and gas industry.

In 2021, the program received a $5 million appropriation to speed its work and in fiscal year 2021, the last year for which figures are available, the program spent nearly $5.4 million on plugging and remediation, according to the program’s annual report.

Rules adopted in 2022 requiring operators to demonstrate they have the financial resources to plug and abandon all their wells, includes a fee on each company to raise $10 million a year for the Orphan Well Program.

The state is also in line to receive $25 million in federal funds from a $1.4 billion U.S. Department of Interior program to deal with orphan wells.

“Our orphan well program is phenomenal,” Robbins said during last week’s ECMC hearing. “It is best in the nation, if not best in the world.”

In September, Oakwood Homes will also be seeking relief from the program.

The leak from the William H. Peltier #1 well was discovered when, at the direction of the town, Oakwood had the soil tested for contaminants before construction.

Trace levels of methane were detected in the ground in August 2020, according to an Oakwood filing with the ECMC.

“The well was either not plugged properly by Vessels or the plugging work has failed, and the well now requires remediation,” Oakwood said in its commission application.

The Vessels Oil Company had been dissolved, although the ECMC still has two company plugging bonds of $25,000 and $30,000.

Last April Oakwood had the soil tested again and the methane was still there. The levels were small and no methane was detected in the air, according to David Frank, Erie’s energy and environmental program specialist.

“Oakwood is not an oil and gas operator, it has no experience with oil and gas operations, and it is unable to perform the work necessary to remediate the well,” the developer said in its ECMC application. “Oakwood efforts to retain the services of a registered operator to remediate the well have been unsuccessful.”

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Oakwood has offered to pay for the plugging and abandonment costs above the Vessels bonds if the ECMC Orphan Well Program will do the work.

Development plans are on hold while the leaking well is addressed. The well “if left unremediated, may pose a risk to the environment or other resources,” the application said.

“Plugged wells need to be monitored in perpetuity to locate those that are leaking and repair them,” said Heidi Leathwood, a climate policy analyst for the environmental group 350 Colorado. “This should fall on operators where possible or the ECMC if there is no responsible operator. There should be specific rules and a portion of the orphaned well program that is devoted to this.”

The older the well the greater the risk, and not only because of age. In 2007 and again in 2013 Colorado upgraded the plugging requirements for wells with the aim of making them less prone to failure.

“In the best-case scenario if everything was done right, a plugging job lasts decades or more, but you are working against chemistry, shrinkage, ground motion,” Cornell’s Ingraffea said. “Once you break the bond between cement and steel you have a highway for oil and gas.”

“They are like me,” he said, “a 76-year-old grandfather where everything is breaking down.”

It took plenty of time, patience and perseverance, but it looks like the Southern Land Company is ready to take the next step in the expansion of their Westerly development with an additional parcel.

On August 22, the Erie Board of Trustees voted unanimously and approved the annexation agreement and a pre-development agreement and the service plan for North Westerly Metropolitan District No. 1-4 which now means growth in the town will be met by an expansion in infrastructure.

During a public hearing, the board welcomed commentary on both sides of the issue as about a dozen people voiced a myriad of concerns and positives about the project that promises to change a number of things people in the community of Westerly will see in the upcoming years.

“The next step is to purchase the land from the state and then move forward with development applications,” Jenna Lefever, Director of Public Relations for Southern Land Company, said a few days after the meeting. “It will likely take until 2026 to obtain the entitlements necessary to begin infrastructure construction.”

Heidi Majerik, vice president and general manager for Southern Land Company, said that the North Westerly property is 400 acres. Southern Land Company is under contract to purchase the land from the Colorado State Land Board.

The land is located in the general vicinity South of County Road 10, North of Erie Parkway, East of County Road 5 and West of County Road 7.

“We are going to build a mixed-use, master-planned community that is an extension of Westerly, which we are already building,” Majerik said. “We would have 1,500 for-sale homes, 400 apartments including 200 attainable units, and approximately 250,000 square feet of commercial development. We hope to have our first homes out of the ground by 2027.”

“We’ve invested heavily in the town. We already have a 400-acre master-plan underway immediately across the street, so this more than doubles the size of the existing community. To comprehensively plan all this land at once has so much public benefit. In addition, we have a home building business. Our home building business has multiple employees who call Erie home. This is a demonstration of our commitment to supporting our employees to be able to live where they work.”

Majerik added that the idea of creating more high-quality jobs in Erie.

She also noted that her company is ingrained in the community.

“We partner with local businesses for many of our needs, and we’ve been very fortunate because the community has really embraced us,” Majerik said. “We’ve been thoughtful in trying to understand the community and respond to their needs. Early on we committed to removing all the oil and gas wells from the property, and we do not negotiate future drill sites with oil and gas companies.”

The board of trustees meeting was colored by civil discourse and concerns brought up, ranging from concern for the planned North Westerly site having underground mines that need to be addressed – including potentially hazardous materials dotting the soil – to worry for the local wildlife, traffic increases and inflated student counts within the local school district and others.

Lefever addressed those concerns.

“The Town of Erie requires that a report on wildlife be completed as part of the development review,” Lefever said. “We will abide by the requirements and produce a report addressing all necessary topics.

“We understand there are concerns any time there is growth; however, we, as a civil society, have a moral obligation to provide housing opportunities as the population grows. At Southern Land Company, we are committed to stewarding the land responsibly and complementing the existing community as best we can. We focus on walkability, intentional landscape design abundant open spaces, and introducing unique shops, restaurants, and services, all of which are intended to add to the broader community, not take away from it.”

She also noted that increased traffic due to the new development will fall under the Town of Erie’s transportation master plan.

Lefever also noted that the St. Vrain Valley School District “does a great job planning for future school population projections, and we will provide funds and/or land to support their growing needs.”

As for the undermining issues that were addressed. Lefever said, “(Southern Lands Company) is required by the Town of Erie to submit an undermining report as part of development review. We will implement any recommended restrictions or mitigation strategies and measures.”

Rachel Folger, a real estate agent in Erie, told the board, “It’s not good land, it’s horrible land,” due to her worries about the hazards of the old mines.

Majerik said at the meeting her company would meet with the community to discuss any of these and other issues going forward.

Erie mayor Justin Brooks said the concerns must be heard, but that progress is also inevitable.

“We hear the residents’ concern about growth,” Brooks said. “We recognize that, seeing when I moved to Erie that those were sunflower fields in the springtime and it was very pretty to watch. As things have been developed on both sides of Erie Parkway, the growth is coming and landowners certainly have the first right of use for their property. In this case, the state land board has placed the land up for sale and it appears the applicant here would like to develop it into a community. I like to hear what has been briefed here in terms of how they want to make the community fit the landscape around them and make a sense of community for both the residents as well as the neighbors.

“I certainly strongly recommend that there’s a lot of work with the neighboring landowners around some of these engineering concerns that have been voiced. We recognize with the upgrade that we did just recently to County Road 7 and Erie Parkway, that these county roads are becoming increasingly traversed. We want to make sure that we’re being proactive in preventing any safety hazards. We want to make sure we’re getting quality traffic studies that are truly reflective of the traffic that are to bear.”

Brie Fowler, a real estate agent in Erie, who has lived in the area since 2004 says she loves Westerly and the vision for the community. Fowler currently lives in Erie Village.

“I’m under contract on a new home in Westerly,” Fowler said. “Every house is its own project, and the landscaping is created individually to match the character of the home. So it’s just really, really special because it’s going to be really unique. It’s got a resort-style pool, they’re going to have a grocery store, a ton of retail, and a bunch of commercial restaurants.

“It’s really just all about, bringing community together and a lifestyle where you can get to everything within five to 15 minutes. So that’s huge to me. We need the builder who is promising to bring in affordable housing and equality and community and economy for the town.”