LOVELAND — Loveland city officials spent Friday morning on a tour of oil and natural-gas sites led by a hydraulic fracturing critic.

City councilors, planning commission members and the city manager and attorney were led on the tour by Kim Orr, a member of the High Plains Environmental Center board. The Loveland environmental group works with developers and offers educational programs, according to its website.

The tour included stops in Erie, Firestone and Frederick.

Orr, a Centerra resident, wrote in a letter to the Loveland Reporter-Herald that her neighborhood "faces the greatest dangers from proposed wells."

"My experience in oil and gas fields is that fracking, as currently regulated, is toxic and unsafe," she said in the letter.

Officials saw wells located close to homes, schools and shopping centers, said Mayor Cecil Gutierrez, who was on the tour. Some wells lacked pollution-control devices.

The city will use the information it gathered to prevent problems from oil and gas drilling in Loveland, Gutierrez said.

"It's always best to... gather as much information and see as many things as we possibly can before making big decisions," he said. "That was