Fracking Craze Resumes - And You'd Be Wise Not To Buy A Home In NE Colorado

It was heart breaking to read the recent Denver Post account of the clash between homeowners in assorted northeastern Colorado communities and the fracking industry  (August 6, p. 1A, 16A). People who not too long ago plopped enormous money into new homes near the Front Range now are faced with the brutal fact they can't sell them for a lousy dime. Who wants to live near fracking -drilling operations, no matter how grand the interior (or exterior) of a home?  And that's even given the home building crunch in the state.

What's even worse is that the problems of noise, oil fumes, methane leaks (such as caused the explosion of a home in Firestone killing two) are likely going to occur even more as the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission - a fake name if ever there was one - has approved or received nearly 3,400 new drilling permits as of mid-July. Even accepting not all of the new permit applications approved will end up as new wells, many will.  Also, permits show where the oil-gas producers want to go and as the Post noted "much of the activity is centered in Colorado's prime growth corridor."

In the Post's activity analysis (op. cit. p. 16A) it was found that of the 100 townships examined (each measuring 36 square miles) "55 were rural with few inhabitants and 45 contained incorporated areas." However, the numbers are misleading given that "the number of permits in rural regions were about half that in populated areas."

The Wattenberg Field tract is a case in point. Of the 20 townships within it - with half or more of their sections incorporated or developed- producers have "recently requested nearly 1,000 drilling permits".   What gives with the Wattenberg?   According to the Post:

"Although producers have actively drilled the Wattenberg since 1970, analysts said horizontal drilling has given the field a new lease on life that could last for years".

For those who don't know, "horizontal drilling" means a fracking well could conceivably be 600 to 800 ft. from your home and still get at its oil or gas reserves by the simple mechanism of extending the underground drill apparatus horizontally over that distance and into your back yard. Ok, under your back yard is the better term.

According to Imre Kugler of IHS Markit in Houston, quoted in the article:

"If you take the whole Wattenberg Field , at the current drilling pace, there is a solid 15 years left"

That is a solid 15 years to despoil neighborhoods in townships affected by drilling. 15 years during which home owners can forget about selling their biggest investments because no one in their right mind would buy them.

Let's also take note of this (ibid.):

"Communities in the path of drilling have added 103, 578 people since 2010 which represents a growth of 15.8  percent, according to counts provided by the Colorado Demography Office."

That is 103, 578 new residents many of whom became new home owners, but who've now learned to their great distress they've moved into fracking zones. Endless noise and pollution and exponentially falling property values. 

Can oil and gas drillers just bust in and do anything they want- including fouling up your neighborhood with fumes and subjecting it to endless drilling noise, as well as threatening your water and your kids' health? Damned straight they can. Under the state's “forced-pooling” statute - which dates from the 1930s- an oil and gas company can get a property owner’s mineral rights, with compensation, even if the owner doesn’t want to sell or lease them.   Thus, if oil or lots of natural gas was found under our home, frackers could just set up drilling to go beneath and extract whatever's there to their heart's content. Never mind the averse effects and inconvenience, there isn't a goddamned thing we could do about it. Take it to the state supreme court? Ha! Don't make me laugh!  Each time townships or communities have tried that route, the state court quashed it.

Just last year, in fact, Longmont and Fort Collins had their efforts to restrict drilling struck down by the state's top court. That court, along with the COGCC firmly believes it's better you and your kids suffer from rashes, respiratory distress and cancers than that they lose money from stymied frack operations.

This is not to say that other metro areas, communities have also suffered the same fate. It appears to depend on: a) existing population density, or b) whether the community governors or city council wields enough power  (and will) - as well as state house backing - to stop the frackers.   In terms of (a) the model city is LA for which we learn "dense development on top of a prolific basin killed off new drilling".

How so? Well, 17 million people live in the Los Angeles basin "including 1.7 million within a mile of an active oil and gas well" - this according to 2015 estimates from the California Council on Science and Technology.   Basically, then, there are simply too many people squeezed into the area to allow any more drilling activity - hence "existing wells have gone into hiding, taking on building facades or relocating to islands off the coast."

As an example of (b) there is Pittsburgh sitting in the middle of the Western Pennsylvania field.  But in November, 2010, "Pittsburgh City Council banned drilling within city limits."

According to Imre Kugler:

"Pittsburgh has been off limits from Day One, the whole metro area. Nobody has tried to drill there and it's a pain dealing with Pennsylvania".

So there's at least one city and state which appears to have its citizens' welfare a higher priority. At least now. Recall that it took documentaries ('Gasland', 'Gasland II') by Josh Fox to shed light on the fracking issue and potential for well leaks in PA.   See e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/07/gasland-ii-fracking-is-worse-than-you.html

Meanwhile, here in Colorado our  fake protectors like the COGCC have enabled the oil and gas giants to take over citizens' lives and render their priorities irrelevant. This has left many Colorado land and homeowners frustrated and feeling that the deck is stacked against them. A driller needs only a single mineral owner to sign a lease, and then everyone else is dragged into the pool. Add to that the oil and gas commission’s liberal approval of pooling orders and the stage is set for potential misuse of the statute.

A link at the end of this post highlights what conditions were for millions of American property owners just three years ago. Now, the drilling has gotten much worse and even more widespread   - especially here in Colorado.  Newcomers that plunked down huge down payments barely 7-8 years ago are now regretting their home purchase decisions as they see the extent to which fracking -drilling has wrecked their home values.  They are raising their voices at town hall meeting, but alas, few are taking them on. 

The unspoken message to anyone planning to move to NE Colorado is: Be prepared for the possibility that your investment could end up quickly in the crapper.  Do you really want to take that crap shot?  Many of those 103,000- odd  newcomers that moved here since 2010 wouldn't do it over again. They are now saddled with homes that have become economic prisons as the oil and gas drillers chip away at the quality of their lives.

See also:

http://www.resource-media.org/drilling-vs-the-american-dream-fracking-impacts-on-property-rights-and-home-values/

Frackers Continue To Run Amuck - Despoiling Soil, Air and Water

A frack rig goes up in Montana - ready to despoil more air, soil and water.

Where does it end? The relentless, unregulated fracking I mean, which continues to despoil the landscape of the nation,  rapidly converting it to a de facto moonscape.  But don't take my word. A recent NDRC investigation into the oil and gas industry has identified ExxonMobil and Shell as the two top fracking violators in Colorado, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.  These companies have been placed on the 'most wanted' list and charged by state environmental groups and authorities with violations and crimes that include: illegal dumping and spills, illegal pollution of air, and contamination of drinking water - as well as failure to conduct safety tests.

The full report on the nefarious acts, released in March by NDRC and the FracTracker Alliance, shines a harsh spotlight on a renegade industry shrouded in secrecy as it not only corrupts the locations its frack wells bore into, but distant ones through which its assorted 'bomb' trains pass - any one of which could explode at any time. See e,g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/02/another-train-explosion-another-reason.html

But is anyone paying attention? Don't count on the Neoliberal gov't which is ok with the industry being shrouded in secrecy and the difficulty of gaining any access to fracking operations. So long as the proles are kept in the dark they don't have to worry or fret about the pitchforks and protests. To give an idea of the extent of the secrecy - and btw, if these operations are so great as the pro-frack ads proclaim, why the need?- the public records on violations are available in only 3 of the 36 states where fracking occurs.

According to Amy Mall, an NDRC senior policy activist:

"You'd want to know if the company or companies operating in your backyard is a responsible corporate citizen or a serial violator. But as it stands now, it's nearly impossible to uncover a company's track record"

This isn't just blowing smoke as the Union of Concerned Scientists has also made clear. The public's need to know is more urgent than ever as a growing body of evidence points to the serious and far reaching health effects of fracking.  Leave out for the moment just the 4 million gallons on average it takes to frack one well - a disaster in dry states like Colorado. Many of the chemicals used in fracking fluid are toxic and they contaminate water resources when leaked or spilled. A report in a Denver Post investigation in May of last year found:

State data also show that 12.3 percent of the past 1,000 spills (since June 24, 2012) already had contaminated groundwater before companies began cleanups.


Thanks to a trio of diligent Democrats: Henry Waxman of California, Diana DeGette of Colorado, and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, we now know the extent of the pollution of our precious watersheds thanks to the hydro-fracking industry. We know, for example, the oil and gas companies injected hundreds of millions of gallons of carcinogenic chemicals into wells in more than 13 states from 2005- 09.

According to the report, the product of an inquiry by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010-11, fourteen of the nation's most active hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of chemical fracturing products, and more than 650 of the chemicals named in the report were known carcinogens, supposedly regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. (Which was rendered toothless for fracking by lobbyists) Among the most toxic of the chemicals used (11.4 million gallons in all) were:

Benzene: a powerful bone-marrow poison (aplastic anemia) associated with leukemia, breast and uterine cancer

- Styrene, which may cause eye and mucous membrane irritation, neurotoxic effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems.

- Toluene, which may cause muscular incoordination, tremors, hearing loss, dizziness, vertigo, emotional instability and delusions, liver and kidney damage, and anemia.

- Xylene, with cancer-causing (mainly in the kidneys, liver) and neurotoxic effects, as well as reproductive abnormalities.

- Methylene chloride, which may cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, central nervous system disorders and COPD.


 As we know from Devra Davis' landmark book, The Secret History of the War on Cancer, the first two of these toxic chemicals have well known correlations to brain carcinomas and chordomas. The other two, to liver, breast and prostate cancers.

Apart from this, it has been found that the gas allowed to escape from frack wells can also leak into the ground into nearby water wells - presenting a different hazard because it is highly flammable. This was demonstrated by Josh Fox in his excellent documentary exposing the fracker criminals, 'Gasland':
 
Water catching on fire from methane having diffused into it.

While such documented flaming water from the tap has prompted numbskulls to get cheap jollies, the facts are a bit different. According to Food & Water Watch there are dozens of cases of methane leaks near drill sites that have caused houses and wells to explode.

Then there is the air pollution. According to NDRC senior scientist Miriam Rotkin-Ellman:

"The risks are not limited to what's in our drinking water. Oil and gas operations are also poisoning the air we breath."

A new analysis by NDRC pinpoints five major health threats from fracking-related air pollution, including: respiratory difficulty, nervous system impacts (brain blackouts, memory loss), blood disorders, birth defects, and cancer.

At least one state has acted on this information on behalf of its citizens. This occurred last December when Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York banned fracking in the state because of the lack of scientific evidence that it can be done safely. In doing this, Governor Cuomo broke from the Neoliberal imperative by invoking the precautionary principle.  To refresh reader memories, this entails placing the onus on the maker of the product or those performing the process to prove their product or process is safe. It is not the job of the consumer or citizens to prove they are unsafe, yet Neoliberal business has adopted this specious plank as noted by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton in  Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.

Think of it! By negating the precautionary principle the Neoliberal market is able to dump all manner of crap on unwary citizens and disarming them so that they can't fight back. "You have to prove to us there is cancer risk!" they shout. Turning the principle on its head.

But unless the rest of us fight for that principle we may all end up in early graves from some kind of cancer or other condition that shortens lifespan.   IN the 'Toxic Sludge is Good for You' book, the PR industry backing the fertilizer manufacturers argued that the people were wrong because "toxic sludge was great for crops". And besides the complainers had no proof of ill effects.   Never mind the vomiting, breakouts in rashes, sexual dysfunction, brain anomalies and convulsions, which "were just in their minds."

Fracking will not go away in other states unless we the citizens demand it and fight for it. The Neoliberals are too invested in this crap  - which really has no business even leaving the ground. It's too degraded an energy source and also doesn't deliver on its energy promise no matter what its PR rats claim.   As Richard Heinberg explains (p. 110) it in his book, 'Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise Imperils Our Future':

No evidence suggests that the technology of fracking has actually raised the EROEI for natural gas production. It temporarily lowered prices but only by glutting the market.

Regarding the promises for kerogen or oil shale, he writes:

"Kerogen is not oil. It is better thought of as an oil precursor that was insufficiently cooked by geologic processes. If we want to turn it into oil, we have to finish the process nature started: that involves heating the kerogen to a high temperature for a long time. And that in turn takes energy- lots of it, whether supplied by hydroelectricity, nuclear power plants, natural gas, or the kerogen itself. "