Dennis Hoshiko and Bruce White, among others in Weld County, can tell you how bad things used to be.
The oil and gas and agriculture industries, Weld County’s two biggest industries, were often at each other’s throats in the 1980s and 1990s.
Fast forward decades later: Oil and gas and agriculture are each larger now than they were then – both worth billions to the local economy and recognized nationally. Rapid urban sprawl often has drillers and ag producers working with one another in tighter quarters and on more crowded roads, and in many cases are in need of the same resources, such as water.
Given those factors, it seems the relationship should be more combative. But those who were around back then and are still involved in the industries today would emphatically tell you otherwise.
“It’s by no means perfect, but the relationship between the two is remarkably better,” said Hoshiko, a Greeley-area farmer. “It’s just night and day.”
The difference in relationships between then and now can be attributed to many factors – legislation, the weeding out of “bad players,” improved technology that has shrunk the footprint of drilling operations and improved economics.
But ask a number of local residents, and they’re quick to mention one important meeting that occurred 30 years ago.
Bridging a divide
White, the owner of what was then Conquest Oil, could see there was a need for change.
“I firmly believe the oil and gas companies had good intentions back then,” White said of his fellow drillers in the 1980s. “They just weren’t aware then of the issues facing farmers and ranchers.”
But White grew up in Ault and knew many of the Weld County farmers and ranchers who had oil and gas operations on their land, or on leased land where they had crops or livestock. Mistakes were made, White said, because they didn’t know how farmers worked. Some operations would put a drilling site that disrupted a farmer’s irrigation system.
Hoshiko also was all too aware of the disconnect between agriculture’s day-to-day functions and oil and gas companies, having seen it on his own farm ground.
“There was just a serious lack of communication,” he said.
Organizing on both sides
Out of frustration with how oil and gas companies treated farmers and land owners, Hoshiko helped found the Front Range Land and Mineral Owners Association.
White helped organize talks among the oil and gas companies, creating the Denver-Julesberg Petroleum Association – which would eventually go on to become the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, which remains an influential voice in the oil and gas industry that focuses on education, political and regulatory developments and community engagement.
“We both helped lead the conversations on each side, and eventually, folks just told Dennis and I to sit in a room and figure things out,” White said.
They did, and although they didn’t agree on everything, what resulted was a plan on how to mitigate impacts, even damage, created by oil and gas operations for farmers and ranchers, as well as where to place new drilling operations so the impact wasn’t as severe in the future.
An enduring change
Those talks were the difference, and they’ve carried over even 30 years later, said Bill Jerke, a farmer and a member of the Colorado House of Representatives from 1989-96. Jerke sponsored a number of the bills that Hoshiko and his fellow farmers supported.
“Bruce didn’t always agree with everything Dennis and I were supporting, but we also found some common ground, and those conversations truly helped pave the way for how great the relationship is now between oil and gas and agriculture,” Jerke said. “I have no doubts about that.”
Jerke, like Hoshiko, still farms in Weld County and has oil and gas operations on his ground. Jerke recently helped found FUEL Colorado, an alliance of Weld County civic and business leaders aimed at increasing the public’s understanding of the natural resource industries, including oil and gas and agriculture.
While legislation in the 1980s and 1990s was aimed at resolving differences between oil and gas and agriculture, the two industries often find themselves on the same side of many political issues today.
An example for today
The oil and gas industry finds itself now doing battle with the Front Range’s rapidly growing municipalities, as well as environmental groups. And now agricultural groups around the state are their allies, including the Colorado Farm Bureau. That group was one of the most vocal on the side of oil and gas in some of the most highly publicized battles recently, such as setback proposals aimed at requiring drilling sites to be farther away from buildings and structures.
This year, agricultural groups supported Senate Bill 93, which proposed that whenever a local government implements bans on drilling or rules and regulations that reduce the value of the owner’s mineral interest, the impacted mineral owners would obtain compensation from the local government. The bill died.
“What oil and gas and ag did back then could certainly serve an example to municipalities of how to work together today,” said Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway. “