Approved oil and gas project in Weld County lies within a half-mile of migrating eagles’ winter roost

Just a few miles into Weld County, east of County Line Road, there’s a group of old-growth cottonwood trees along Boulder Creek in the middle of several quarry ponds surrounded by a meadow of hay. It’s near-perfect conditions for migrating bald eagles to roost for the winter, a place they can feed, forage and shelter during the short days and cold nights. 

Volunteer researchers with the group Front Range Nesting Bald Eagle Studies (FRBNES) observed as many as 23 traveling bald eagles in 2017 roosting at the site, known as the middle Boulder Creek communal bald eagle roost. Within the last year or so, however, numbers have dwindled. Some winter days researchers see a few, maybe a dozen or so. But if there is any heavy machinery, lights, noise or drill rigs in the area, the count is generally zero. There are a few tanks near the trees, a pipeline going in up the creek, and rigs have been plugging wells nearby.

“What we see is when those rigs are around, there are no eagles there,” says Dana Bove, a retired federal geologist who now spends his time observing and documenting bald eagles in Boulder and Weld counties with FRNBES.

And this kind of disturbance in the area is only likely to worsen, Bove says, with Crestone Peak Resources’ plan to put in 22 wells about one-third of a mile to the east of the historic winter roost. The company’s application was approved by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) in September 2018, although work has yet to begin at the site.

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