Matt Sura In The News

“'Recurring negligence': Larimer County files complaint against oil company after fire” Jacy Marmaduke, Fort Collins Coloradoan

Larimer County commissioners were unanimous in their direction to file the COGCC complaint and urge the state to escalate enforcement of its air pollution laws. The complaint gives the county a seat at the table as COGCC investigates the fire and considers penalties, Sura told commissioners at a work session earlier this month. It also gives Larimer County the ability to request a hearing before the COGCC if county leaders aren’t satisfied with the outcome of the complaint…..

Prospect has to turn in its financial assurance plan to the COGCC as soon as July 1, with the deadline for each operator determined based on how many wells it operates. The county can engage in that process by asking Prospect to consider plugging low-producing wells or by requesting that COGCC place some of Prospect’s inactive and low-producing wells on the plugging list. County staff are evaluating which of Prospect’s wells are both low-producing and present potential threats to public health, safety and welfare, Sura said.

“Oil and gas regulators dial back rules that keep industry from sticking Colorado with bill for orphan wells,” Mark Jaffe, The Colorado Sun, Nov 4, 2021

The orphan well list is poised to grow even more. “There will probably be a few more of these matters coming through,” [COGCC Director] Murphy told the commission.

“We have a huge problem on our hands and there is not an easy solution because it was a problem that was 70 years in the making,” said Matt Sura, an attorney representing environmental groups in the financial assurance proceedings.

"Nearly half of Colorado’s 52,000 wells produce little or no oil. Who’ll pay to plug them?"

Rules are being drafted to cover the cost of cleaning up obsolete wells. But for rural farmers and suburban homeowners, idle pipes and pump jacks are a daily reminder of how complex and expensive the process is., Mark Jaffe, The Colorado Sun, Aug 22, 2021

In 2020, there were 17,196 inactive wells – producing less than the equivalent of 1 barrel of oil a day, including 9,585 wells that produced no oil or gas at all. There were another 8,538 low-producing wells with an output of between 1 and 5 barrels a day, according to state data.

Jon Stephens remains vexed by the [delay in plugging wells on his property]. “The farmer is left waiting three years, maybe more, after already waiting years,” he said. “We just want the return of our farmland.”

Noble [Energy], when asked by The Sun about the Stephenses’ wells, said they are scheduled to be plugged late this year or early next. “That’s not my information,” said Matt Sura, the attorney representing the Stephenses.

All this leaves Jon Stephens frustrated. “We aren’t anti-oil,” he said. “We’re pro-oil, we just think there should be a fair game.”

[Attorney Sura negotiated the plugging of the wells and flowlines one the Stephenson’s property two months after this article.]

“Colorado regulators target tiny oil field device that’s a big contributor to greenhouse gas, ozone pollution. Even major oil companies admit that tens of thousands of pneumatic controllers should be upgraded to prevent natural gas from seeping out,” Mark Jaffe, The Colorado Sun, Jan 21, 2021

The Air Quality Control Commission is set to take up a proposed rule in February to require non-emitting or no-bleed controllers on all new oil and gas projects and at existing sites being upgraded.

“They are the very largest contributor to ground level ozone and methane emissions after tanks,” said Matt Sura, attorney for Conservation Colorado and other environmental groups. “Eliminating them going forward is a huge step.”

“Fight over Colorado setback rule sets up make-or-break hearing on how close is too close for oil and gas. The drawn-out battle over state rulemaking still centers on how far operations should be set back from homes and schools. But environmentalists say residents should not be “guinea pigs” while the work is done.” Mark Jaffe, The Colorado Sun, Sep 8, 2020.

Colorado regulators have spent more than a year overhauling the state’s oil and gas drilling rules, but on Tuesday they face revising what both industry and environmentalists see as the make-or-break rule: setbacks of oil and gas operations from homes and schools…

“This [the Colorado Department of Health study] is the best available science,” said Matt Sura, an attorney representing Conservation Colorado and Western Slope grassroots groups. The industry has challenged the CDPHE’s methodology…. Even if the science is debatable, Sura and Blair on Friday made a case to the commission that the setbacks were needed for safety and to curb nuisances.

Blair said there was a case where an explosion sent the top of a tank 500 feet and one in Texas, where an explosion created a 750-foot crater. Sura pointed to a 2015 lightning strike at a Greeley well pad that necessitated evacuating the surrounding area.

COGCC data showed that between 2006 and 2015, there were 116 fires or explosions that caused significant damage — almost one a month, Blair said.

Sura also said that noise and odors – two of the most common complaints from neighbors to well sites – are sharply reduced by distance. This is especially true of the large multi-well sites where drilling and fracking can go on for 18 months or more. “These large facilities have to be treated differently and set apart,” Sura said.

[The COGCC ultimately required a 2,000 foot setback from homes unless the operator can demonstrate adequate equivalent protections

“Warnings of orphan and zombie wells spark debate on bonding by oil, gas companies. Colorado regulators consider stronger financial assurances to cover costs of closing, cleaning up wells,” JUDITH KOHLER, The Denver Post, November 22, 2021

The problem is that “we’ve got a lot of really low-producing oil and gas wells in the state of Colorado,” said Matt Sura, an attorney who represents environmental groups and local governments.

Data from the COGCC and analyzed by WildEarth Guardians, an environmental group, showed that 9,585, or 20% of the state’s wells produced nothing in 2020, Sura said. Another 17,284, or 33%, produced less than the equivalent of 1 barrel of oil a day.

The fear is that financial pressures could drive the companies into bankruptcy and turn the wells into orphans, Sura said.

“Weld County pounces on local control in wake of new state oil and gas law. Commissioners unanimously designate county as oil and gas local-control county,” JOHN AGUILAR, The Denver Post, June 10, 2019.

Whether Weld County’s move means that it will attempt to create oil and gas regulations that are less restrictive than what state law permits is not yet known. The county will spend the next several weeks making changes to its code dealing with oil and gas extraction.

Matt Sura, an oil and gas attorney who represents several Front Range communities, said while SB 181 eradicated state pre-emption of local governments over oil and gas issues, the new law doesn’t do away with the state’s authority over the industry altogether.

“SB 181 specifically gives local governments the power to go beyond state control but it does not give them the power to be less restrictive than the state,” Sura said.

“Regulators tighten oil, gas leak-detection requirements,” DENNIS WEBB, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Dec 17, 2021

Regulations adopted by state air-quality regulators Friday will result in part in increased leak detection and repair requirements for oil and gas wells, including in the case of low-producing wells in the state that previously were subject to just a once-in-a-lifetime inspection for leaks.



The Colorado Air Quality Control Commission unanimously approved the new regulations. They will curb emissions of methane, ozone-related and other emissions from oil and gas facilities and were required by state law to be adopted before Jan. 1.

“The Air Quality Control Commission’s vote to increase the rate of leak detection and repair inspections for all impacted communities is critically important for Western Colorado,” Rodger Steen, chair of the Western Colorado Alliance’s Oil and Gas Committee, said in the release. “All wells need to be inspected for leaks and all people deserve protections from toxic emissions, no matter where they live.”

Matt Sura, an attorney representing the Western Colorado Alliance, testified to the commission that thousands of low-producing wells in the state haven’t been inspected for leaks since 2016.

“Possible 2,000-foot drilling setbacks met with cheers, fears on West Slope,” DENNIS WEBB, The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, Sep 13, 2020 



Some local activists are cheering indications that state regulators may impose a 2,000-foot setback between oil and gas development and homes, while the industry and its supporters worry that it could make a lot of land in western Colorado unavailable to drilling.

A majority of the five-member Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission this week indicated initial support for 2,000-foot setbacks, which are greater than what agency staff had recommended. The commission is looking at setbacks as part of sweeping rulemaking proceedings it is undertaking to implement Senate Bill 181, which was passed last year.

The commission currently has a 500-foot minimum setback with exceptions allowing for closer drilling in some cases in rural areas. Matt Sura, an attorney who long has advocated for stricter commission rules, said that, generally speaking, drilling doesn’t occur closer than 500 feet from homes.

The commission’s chairman, Jeff Robbins, and most other commissioners voiced support for a 2,000-foot setback from all homes based on health research and comments from residents living near drilling activity.

“FRACTURED: Part V, Trouble in Triple Creek,” Daniel Glick, Kelsey Ray and Ted Wood, The Colorado Independent, November 2, 2016

At one point, the [Greeley] residents’ lawyer Matthew Sura faced off with COGCC Director Lepore. Sura insisted that the COGCC would be ignoring two key provisions of the new rules if they approved Extraction’s Triple Creek plans as presented: one, that companies must rigorously assess their ability to conduct operations “as far as possible” from where people lived; and two, that companies use state-of-the-art technology to minimize impacts.

Sura had been on the Governor’s Task Force, and knew that every change in the rules that even remotely inconvenienced the industry was hard-fought. The neighborhood drilling rules were, in Sura’s opinion, the only substantive protections that the Task Force had achieved for neighborhood residents. But Lepore, Sura said, didn’t seem inclined to apply even those rules to Extraction’s plans.

As the meeting wound down, Lepore made a comment that residents say left them dumbstruck. “You need to understand the amount of money that Extraction has already put into this site,” they recall him saying. “And they need a return on their investment soon.”….

Sura felt Triple Creek was a place where residents had firm legal ground to make a stand, thanks to the COGCC’s new neighborhood drilling rules. Yet he warned his new clients not to hold their breath. “The COGCC has a perfect record,” Sura told them. “They’ve never rejected a company’s siting request.”

[COGCC eventually approved the Greeley location, but Extraction agreed to the use of oil pipelines.]

“FRACTURED: Part IV, Why it took years to shut down Texas Tea,” Daniel Glick and Kelsey Ray, The Colorado Independent, October 23, 2016



The county seat for Adams County, about 25 miles north of Denver, had already been dealing with one of Texas Tea’s abandoned wells when the COGCC shut the company down in June. In December 2015, the city split the approximately $26,000 cost of plugging and abandoning one of Texas Tea’s wells with a private company interested in expanding gravel mining where a well was located. The company “couldn’t wait for the COGCC to act,” said Matthew Sura, an attorney who represented Brighton in these matters.

Texas Tea also operated 17 other wells in and around Brighton. After being apprised of the enforcement action against Texas Tea in June, city officials were concerned that the abandoned wells might leak and leach into the city’s groundwater, according to Sura. Brighton officials asked the COGCC to step in to address the four remaining Texas Tea wells within the city’s “Public Water System” area.

The COGCC agreed to take on the four-well project, with an estimated cost of $120,000 to plug them. Brighton officials “appreciate that the COGCC prioritized the plugging and abandonment of these Texas Tea wells,” Sura said.

“Larimer County tightens oil and gas rules, becoming perhaps the most strict in the state” Molly Bohannon, Sady Swanson, Fort Collins Coloradoan Aug. 4, 2021.

Rules ‘among the most strict in the state’ [Larimer County’s Special Counsel] Matt Sura told the commissioners that with these new regulations, Larimer County “will be among the most strict in the state of Colorado” in almost every respect. 

“Gunbarrel shows up to fight fracking”, Dani Hemmat, Left Hand Valley Courier, Dec 27, 2018, 

A Heatherwood Neighborhood is being leased by Extraction Oil and Gas, a Denver based oil and gas company. A group of citizens from this spotlighted neighborhood got together on December 19, 2018. The meeting featured Speaker Matt Sura. In this meeting Sura explained that he was proud of Boulder County government for trying to fix a “broken system”, but he also noted that “the COGCC has never denied a permit application.” 

“Will Colorado’s New Oil and Gas Law Really Destroy the Industry?”, Jay Bouchard, 5280 Magazine, April 11, 2019,

A new bill has fallen on the Senate floor. This bill is called SB-181. SB-181 will give Local Government more say in their own towns rules for oil and gas development. When the bill was dropped the Oil and Gas Industry went crazy and Sen. Rob Woodward says that the economic effects will be so severe that “Marriages will crumble and suicides will increase.” Matt Sura has a different view. Sura says that, “There will be several impacts, but I don’t think those impacts will be as dramatic as the oil and gas industry is saying.” Sura also notes that the bulk of oil and gas wells in Colorado are located in places that are unlikely to impose more self-regulation in addition to what the state mandates.

“In “new era” of oil and gas regulation, Colorado communities waste no time writing own rules” John Aguilar, Denver Post, May 6, 2019,

Less than three weeks after Gov. Jared Polis signed into law a sweeping bill giving cities and towns in Colorado new powers to regulate oil and gas drilling, communities sitting atop the state’s vast fossil fuel deposits are already looking at how to flex their newfound muscle. Several local governments started getting rulemaking started including Lafayette, within hours of the bill being signed added 6 months to their moratorium. Matt Sura, an oil and gas attorney for a half dozen northern Front Range communities perched over the mineral-rich Denver-Julesburg basin, told elected leaders at a recent Brighton City Council study session that “Local governments’ hands have been tied for as long as we’ve been doing this work together,” Sura said told City Council members in April. “You couldn’t go beyond what the state required. And that made things difficult.”

“Colorado Oil and Gas regulators tell Weld County the State still has authority as to where wells can go”, Joe Rubino, Denver Post, July 23, 2019,

Colorado oil and gas regulators are moving to rein in Weld County in the era of Senate Bill 181, the law passed this spring that gives more power to local governments to manage energy extraction within their borders. At issue is whether or not cities, counties, and towns can enact rules for drilling that are less restrictive than those on the books — or soon to be put on the books — at the state level. 

Matt Sura states that, “I can’t imagine that there is any oil and gas operator who is willing to ignore the need for a state permit and go to Weld County and get their local county permits and start drilling, That would be unlawful, illegal and would be penalized under state statute.”

“Superior looks toward oil and gas regulation in wake of Rocky Flats drilling scare”, 

Andrew Hahn, Boulder Daily Camera, November 22, 2018,

Superior’s temporary — and ill-fated — brush with oil and gas has made a lasting impression on the town. Though United Kingdom-based drilling firm Highlands Natural Resources Corp. dropped its plans to drill within the town’s 4-square-mile border last week, the area remains open for future applications, town officials say, and the community is wasting no time shoring up its slim regulations ahead of another drilling proposal. Matt Sura was brought on as the Town of Superior’s oil and gas attorney.

“Colorado school board feels forced to allow drilling under high school”, John Aguilar, Denver Post, September 7, 2017,

Oil and gas production in the rapidly expanding suburbs north of Denver continues to rankle residents, with the latest concerns coming from leaders at Adams 12 Five Star Schools over a plan by an energy firm to drill for minerals under Horizon High School. The school board for the 39,000-student district met Wednesday to consider signing a lease with Great Western Oil and Gas Co. that would enable the company to access 39 acres of mineral rights two miles under the school.

“Colorado Gov. Hickenlooper names 19 to new oil and gas task force on local control”, Cathy Proctor, Denver Business Journal, Sep 8, 2014.

Hickenlooper said Monday that the task force is “charged with crafting recommendations to help minimize land use conflicts that can occur when siting oil and gas facilities near homes, schools, businesses and recreational areas.”

The announcement said nearly 300 people from various industries, environmental organizations, and civic leader from around the state applied to be on the commission. The 19 task force members named Monday include local activists, oil and gas executives, and former state officials. The list included: Matt Sura, attorney, Law Office of Matthew Sura