DENVER — The Energy and Carbon Management Commission spent the day hearing technical testimony and cross‑examination over Crestone/Civitas’s State Sunlight Long oil and gas development plan (docket 241200313), as commissioners weighed competing evidence on how far wells will drain, whether nearby leases will be deprived of value, and how community impacts should be managed.

Civitas witnesses said extensive local data and industry‑standard engineering methods show perpendicular drainage distances in the Watkins area are on the order of 200–300 feet. “The Sunlight West drainage of 287 feet is less than the proposed setbacks and, importantly, is nowhere near the 1,300‑foot perpendicular drainage distance,” said Casey Decker, Civitas’s subsurface manager, during his presentation of analog‑well forecasts and decline‑curve analysis. Civitas also described mitigation steps — timing restrictions, BMPs and cooperation with wildlife agencies — intended to protect species such as northern leopard frogs and Swift Fox, and noted lease and surface‑access constraints that shaped pad siting.

Maverick Minerals and its witnesses disputed that range. Kevin Harringer, who testified as a Maverick leaseholder, said Crestone’s amended cap created a carved‑out “donut hole” that excluded Maverick acreage and raised possible financial loss. Petroleum engineer Thomas Smith presented parent‑child production analyses from nearby pads and testified those data show depletion and hydraulic responses at distances well beyond the volumes predicted by volumetric models. “Volumetric analysis is the wrong tool for the job at hand,” Smith told the commission, arguing that measured production in several local pads showed meaningful depletion out past 1,000 feet.

Outside experts pressed regulators on monitoring and community impacts. Andrew Kloster of Earthworks showed optical‑gas‑imaging video from field surveys and said operators’ perimeter monitors often miss visible plumes. “Over the course of these surveys we documented 45 separate instances of hydrocarbon emissions traveling beyond pad boundaries; only one of those instances was potentially picked up in the monitored reports,” he said, noting gaps in how continuous monitors are deployed and how the data are reported to the Air Pollution Control Division.

Acoustics consultant William Thornton reviewed ambient noise baseline work commissioned by STAR (beyond ECMC’s 72‑hour baseline) and critiqued the opacity of Crestone’s noise model inputs. Thornton said relocation of the pad to a nearby alternate site would reduce sound levels experienced by nearby neighborhoods by about 7–8 decibels — a perceptible change — and called relocation a practical mitigation measure.

Commissioners asked detailed questions of both technical camps about data sources, choke histories, frac hits, reservoir‑pressure measurements and the practical feasibility of alternate surface locations. Counsel and parties disputed procedural points about exhibit format and multimedia submitted as part of presentations. Commissioners ended the day by adjourning to reconvene on Tuesday, Nov. 25, to continue remaining testimony and consider rebuttal and closing arguments.

The commission now faces two central choices: whether to accept Crestone’s engineering case and the proposed setbacks as protective, or to find the weight of parent‑child production data, plus community monitoring and noise concerns, sufficient to require different setbacks, DSU structure, or relocation/other mitigation. The hearing continues Nov. 25.