Well, in the advent of extended-reach wells going for two miles or more, this may not be all that important, except in populated areas. As an example, the city of Fort Worth has a sweet spot of the Barnett Shale underlying it, and companies have been able to drill and develop it on a relative handful of multi-well pads. Having said that, none of them would be drilled under the city if one truly must abide by the setback of 2500'
Seems that, like a mineral owner in New York which will not allow fraccing, Colorado mineral owners have a reasonable chance of successfully arguing a 'taking' of their property if this item passes. This is tyranny by the majority otherwise.
The absolute beauty of the oil and gas business is that technology has advance fantastically to allow such a small footprint to be used to extract its resources.
Very few other energy ventures can make claim to that(especially ethanol and solar).
The DJ Basin, not to mention the Cozette/Corcoran wells don't have as generous a target as the Barnett, Nor are these wells quite the same as unconventional resopurces--you can get water for your troubles. Keep in mind, that according to the definition, intermittent streams and all sorts of other 'special' areas apply. Find some place in Colorado 2500 ft. from an intermittent stream or a running/standing body of water, AND close enough to the right resources to even think about drilling a well, and you will have hit the jackpot (roughly a square mile without any watershed, so you can plunk down in the middle and drill a well). Or one Dinosaur bone could shut you down, even though they are not uncommon in the Western Part of the state. Then there is the question of whether BLM lands or National Forest land would be considered to be "Public open space". If so, there isn't much left to drill a well on.
I have worked wells which ran 2 1/2 sections in Montana, (1600 acre spacing, 12000 ft. lateral wellbore). We only did two, because of the leases held by the operator. The last part is the most expensive, difficult to steer, and suffers greatly from side hole friction while drilling. Merely orienting tools for a 'slide' to change the direction of the hole is difficult, and can use up thousands of dollars worth of rig time. The further out you get, the more difficult and expensive it gets to drill.
Of course, that is dependent on the formation you are drilling, the thickness and rock type, and the depths involved, but as a general rule, that is the case.
