Opinion

The most expensive single purchase most people will ever make is a home. They deserve reasonable certainty that it is not going to explode in flames.

Last month, in a new housing development in Firestone, north of Denver, a fatal house explosion killed two people.

According to The Denver Post, fire officials determined the cause to be gas from a severed, but live, underground flowline that had not been disconnected or capped from a newly restarted well owned by Anadarko Petroleum Corp.

The valve at the well had not been closed, and the gas seeped into the house through a sump pump and French drains. Unlike commercial natural gas, gas coming from wells has no scent.

The homeowners did not know the flowline existed.

Last week, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, D-Denver, ordered energy companies to identify, inspect and map flowlines within 1,000 feet of occupied structures. And, he said, the location of such lines, as well as wells, should be part of the public record available to prospective property owners.

Not so fast, the oil-and-gas industry said, claiming wells and pipelines were safe. The city of Broomfield had requested updated emergency response plans and maps of all their facilities, including flowlines, from another energy company, Extraction Oil and Gas.

That firm has not provided the requested maps. According to the Post, the company responded that it had checked its wells and believe they were in compliance with state regulations. “In compliance” and “safe” are not exact synonyms.

And the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission this week voted to challenge, in order to seek clarity, a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling that requires protection of public health and safety, as well as the environment, before energy production can proceed.

Hickenlooper is right; the state has a right, on behalf of its citizens, to collect and make available information about where wells and transmission lines lie.

The Firestone explosion proved that it is just too easy for something to go badly wrong under the current system.

While energy producers are checking their equipment, the legislature should join the governor in protecting Coloradans’ right to know.