Emergency Community Meeting to Defend Boulder County From Hydraulic Fracturing

From Colorado Extraction Resistance:

From The Colorado Pledge of Resistance Against Continued Hydraulic Fracturing:

On Tuesday, May 21^st, the Boulder County Commissioners voted to allow the current moratorium against hydraulic fracturing in Boulder County to expire in June of this year. In doing so, the Commissioners turned their back on our health, the natural environment, and our democratic will to determine that this type of industrial activity has no place in our community.

On Sunday, June 2^nd, an emergency public meeting will be held to defend Boulder County from an industrial and political process that does not take our lives and well-being into consideration. This effort is bigger than environmentalism. This is an attack on our basic civil rights and we will organize and respond accordingly.

Please attend this very important meeting to inform yourself where Boulder County now stands in relation to future oil and gas drilling, and how to organize and use the analysis and tactics of the successful civil rights movements of the past. We will attempt to answer the enormous amount of questions from the community, and organize a campaign to ensure the future of our health, environment, and self-determination. As we have reached the end of all possible negotiations with the Commissioners and the State, and the community continues to be placed in harm’s way, this effort will necessitate the use of historic nonviolent civil disobedience and direct action.

Please join us at this historic crossroads.

Where: Unity Church, 2855 Folsom, Boulder County
When: Sunday, June 2^nd, 2 – 5 pm

La Plata County agrees to shale-oil drilling

Firm will now go to state for approval of two wells

By Emery Cowan, The Durango Herald

The national debate about shale drilling and hydraulic facturing played out Tuesday in La Plata County Courthouse as county commissioners considered signing a memorandum of understanding with a Texas energy company that has plans to drill two exploratory shale-oil wells in the southwest part of the county.

The wells will be the county’s first shale drilling.

After more than three hours of presentations and public comment, La Plata County Commissioners unanimously approved the memorandum of understanding with Swift Energy Operating LLC.

“This MOU does the best this county can do right now to protect the interests of the people who live in the area, to try to minimize the impacts on you and also allow energy development to go forward,” Commissioner Julie Westendorff said.

With the agreement, Swift will go forward to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission with applications for two exploratory drilling and spacing units. The target is the Mancos Shale, a shale play that stretches across northwestern New Mexico and into Southwest Colorado and is thought to be rich in oil and natural gas.

The memorandum puts several requirements on Swift’s drilling operations, including emissions controls, water-sampling standards and well-pad sharing mandates, that go beyond what would be required by the state.

The county has made such agreements standard practice, and already has 22 memorandums of understanding with other operators in the county. The contract commissioners considered Tuesday is unique because horizontal hydraulic fracturing techniques used to unlock oil resources from the shale will have different and more intense effects on the county roads, water resources and surface landscape.

Multistage hydraulic fracturing requires at least three times the water required to drill coal-bed methane wells, for example, and shale-oil well-pad sites are about three times larger than those of coal-bed methane wells.

In response, the county added several components to the Swift memorandum that go above and beyond the standard contract for coal-bed methane operators. Those include groundwater sampling requirements that the COGCC adopted in January and will go into effect in May as well as a requirement that Swift do an assessment of all existing wells in the drilling units to make sure their operations won’t compromise the casing or cementing of those older wells.

At least 50 county residents packed the commissioners meeting room Tuesday to hear commissioners’ deliberations and share opinions about Swift’s project.

Many Fort Lewis Mesa residents cited concerns about the potential for fracking operations to contaminate groundwater in the area. Several people wanted more extensive water-well sampling requirements than those required by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which require sampling of up to four wells within one half mile from the wellhead.

“I’m concerned the MOU is not enough,” resident Jessica Copp said. “We all deserve testing before, during and after (drilling) and probably at a larger distance from the well bore and the lateral.”

Swift will drill down 2,500 feet then extend its wells laterally for up to 3,000 feet said Bob Redweik, Swift’s corporate manager of health, safety and environment.

Copp and others also brought up the issue of truck traffic along the county roads and the potential for trucks to interfere with school buses, for example.

Swift likely will haul water, crude oil, fracking chemicals and produced water to and from the well sites, Redweik said. The company estimates the wells’ daily oil production will fill two 130-barrel capacity trucks, he said.

Other residents cited concerns about the risks fracking chemicals may pose to human health and the ecological effects of air pollution from drilling.

Swift also had its supporters who encouraged the county to approve the memorandum of understanding. Holding up drilling impedes on private property rights and hinders legal private contracts, said Mae Morley, a landowner who owns both land and mineral rights within the proposed drilling unit.

If Swift’s unit applications are approved at the state level, the company said it hopes to apply for a drilling permit in April and move a rig into the area this summer.

The Mancos Shale has edged more and more into the spotlight over the last three years, and the play was at the center of a two-day conference this week that drew about 500 people from around the nation to Farmington. However, most drilling into the shale has been done in the southern part of the San Juan Basin.

The prospects for oil in the northern part of the basin are still unknown, Redweik said.

“We’re trying to prove up something that hasn’t been done before,” he said.

(Earth First! Durango note: Also see the op-ed, “Oil shale a false hope”)

3/22 Colorado Extraction Resistance Governor’s Mansion Rally and DA Training

Colorado Extraction Resistance
Rally and Direct Action Teach-in
Friday, March 22nd 5:30pm
Governor’s Mansion (400 E 8th Ave @Logan St. Denver, CO)

In solidarity with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance week of action we are calling for a public denunciation of Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper for his ever increasingly obvious role as a spokesperson for the corrupt oil & gas industry. For far too long, Hickenlooper has misused his authority to force Colorado to allow the destructive practice of hydraulic fracturing which poisons our air, our water, our land, and our bodies.  We will be converging on the Governor’s mansion  to make it clear that he does not represent us, and that Colorado is ready to stand up to the toxic extraction industry.  Bring signs, banners, puppets, chains, and u-locks for educational lockdown demonstrations) and of course fracking fluid!

Governor Hickenlooper’s track record makes it clear that he purposely denies climate science in order to act on behalf of the predatory industry interests instead of the citizens who elected him.  He has threatened to sue any city or county in Colorado that bans fracking. He is also planning an upcoming visit to the Tar Sands in Canada on March 26th for “relationship building”. Our Governor has continuously shown us that he will allow Oil & Gas to plunder and pollute our state’s basic survival resources of water and air. What will it take to stop him and his corporate masters from turning Colorado into an industrial sacrifice zone?

We demand that Governor Hickenlooper enact an immediate ban on all
hydraulic fracturing operations in Colorado, and that all responsible
companies be forced to pay financial restitution to residents who have suffered damage to their health and property.  Any jobs associated with fracking do not justify the staggering ecological destruction it brings; fracking has been proven to devastate the health of humans and animals near extraction sites while poisoning workers at the fracking pad itself. As citizens of Colorado it is not only our right but our duty to address this urgent threat to our environment and public health.

Colorado Extraction Resistance will defend the fracking bans recently passed in Longmont and Fort Collins and the moratorium planned in Lafayette.

Building statewide solidarity amongst fracking resisters, we will counter any attempt to intimidate residents into accepting the poison and lies of the oil & gas industry.

Facts about fracking that Hickenlooper refuses to acknowledge:

– Fracking spews endocrine disruptors into the air and water.

– Many chemicals used in fracking are classified as carcinogenic and hazardous air pollutants. Many of these chemicals, such as benzene, are routinely found in the air, water, and ground during and after fracking operations.  Health effects associated with benzene include acute and chronic nonlymphocytic leukemia, acute myeloid leukemia, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, anemia, and other blood disorders and immunological effects.

– Fracking permanently depletes fresh groundwater vital to ecosystems & agriculture.

– The EPA is allowing fracking companies to inject toxic waste water directly into drinking water aquifers under Northern Colorado.

– Even at distances of 2,700 feet from a fracking well site, toxic chemicals were still detectable at levels that would increase the chance of developing cancer by 66 percent.

– Pets and livestock exposed to fracking byproducts in the air and water suffered neurological, reproductive and gastrointestinal disabilities.

– At a conservative estimate, the oil & gas industry owns at least 20% of land in Colorado through private and public leases for fracking operations.  The industry has bought much of this land for as little as $2 an acre.

Sources: fractivist.blogspot.ru | ecowatch.org

NO JOBS ON A DEAD PLANET!
To receive SMS text updates on actions related to fracking resistance and other local issues, text @DenverDOS to 23559.

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A Must Read Account of Fracking in Colorado

Drilling activities along both sides of the Colorado River, Interstate 70, and the Amtrak rail lines in Garfield County, Colorado. Photo courtesy of TEDX The Endocrine Disruption Exchange

By Phillip Doe, EcoWatch

I went to a meeting earlier this winter in the Colorado Governor’s Office. I’m not a regular.

The Governor, John Hickenlooper, Hick to his friends, had called the meeting with Boulder County Commissioners to discuss the county’s draft regulations governing the recovery of oil and gas found in the county’s deep underground shale formations. The fact is that most of the state is underlain by these ancient and organically rich seabeds. All are ripe for exploitation through the use of the industry’s new mining technique called horizontal fracking.

In his haste, the governor had apparently forgotten that such meetings require the public be notified at least 24 hours in advance so they can listen in on the public’s business. This law has been on the books since 1972 and is widely used, but imperfectly understood, apparently, by the governor and his lieutenants. Hick was a long-term mayor of Denver before becoming governor. Its use is commonplace in city government.

To an outsider this meeting might sound like a tempest in a teapot, but as in most states with oil and gas reservoirs made recoverable through fracking, the state government of Colorado has said that it, and it alone, has the authority to regulate the oil and gas industry. The counties and cities may write their own regulations, but they must be in “harmony” with the state’s, and can not add conditions or requirements that would harm the industry’s bottom line. They are “preempted” from doing so.

Click here to read the full article from EcoWatch.org…

Introducing Colorado Extraction Resistance

Colorado Extraction Resistance (CER) is a new group committed to organizing direct actions against poisonous energy industry processes such as hydraulic fracturing and tar sands extraction.  We are fighting for a Colorado free from the grip of the oil & gas industry that is engaging in ongoing acts of eco-terrorism against our citizens.  Politicians and mainstream environmental organizations have made it clear that they are not interested in defending those most threatened by toxic extraction methods such as fracking.  To prevent all of Colorado from becoming a “sacrifice zone” to the oil & gas industry (like Weld County), a grassroots campaign of direct action will be necessary.

CER is allied with any affected or threatened community seeking to defend itself from harmful extraction processes.  We are particularly interested in working with landowners and residents who have hydraulic fracturing operations taking place on or near their property without their consent.

Colorado Extraction Resistance intends to:

-Support any municipality attempting to ban fracking.

-Take actions opposing Governor Hickenlooper or any other party attempting to intimidate local municipalities that would enact a fracking ban.

-Initiate solidarity actions with other extraction resistance, climate justice, and indigenous sovereignty movements nationally and internationally.  Such groups include, but are not limited to: Tar Sands Blockade, Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance, Utah Tar Sands Resistance, Appalachia Resist!, the Red Lakes Blockade, Stop the Tennessee Pipeline!, Stop the Boulder County Frack Attack, and Idle No More.

– Expose those companies investing in and grossly profiting from the destruction of our ecosystems and the poisoning of our communities and hold individuals accountable for their involvement with these companies.

-Engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to physically obstruct, disrupt, and delay operations at extraction sites.

To receive SMS text updates on actions related to extraction resistance and other local issues in the Denver area, text “@DenverDOS” to 23559.

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@ColoradoER on twitter / like “Colorado Extraction Resistance” on Facebook
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Just Say No to “Unconventional Oil”: Stop Fracking Colorado!

From Occupy Denver:

Members of local environmentalist groups will team up with Occupy Denver to rally and protest an upcoming “unconventional” oil and gas convention at the Colorado Convention Center, where former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum will be present as a speaker promoting the interests of the ideologically counter-progressive 1%.

When: Tuesday, May 15th from 11:00am to 2:00pm
Where: By the “blue bear” on 14th and Stout, 700 14th Street.

The purpose of this rally is to let the corporate execs and engineers who pack this convention know that turning Colorado into a dead zone for hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and oil shale development is decidedly NOT OK with us; also to raise concern among the general public about the dangers of unconventional methods of oil development. We will rally outside the Colorado Convention Center before and during Rick Santorum’s keynote speech (which begins at noon) to let people know what’s going on inside, and what this means for the future of our state—unless we put an end to it. An open mic forum will be held to address issues crucial to the physical health of our people as well as the environmental/ ecological health of our state.

Be sure to make a visible sign so that you can send your message to all inside, and to the general public outside. (Possible sign-making ideas: “Colorado Not For Sale”; “There Be Frackers In Here”; “No Country For Old White Frackers,” etc.) We also encourage anyone to bring theatrical ideas to dramatize this event (haz-mat suits, EPA inspector costumes, gas masks, “fracking fluid,” etc. would be quite appropriate here).

Photo by William Avery Hudson

For a more in-depth account of what this is all about, here is a brief description taken straight from the website’s welcome page: “In 2011 alone, 67% of DUO’s audience was corporate and engineering management along with research and development. Operating and financial companies accounted for over 55% of conference delegates.” So this is kinda like a country club gathering for oil tycoons. Full details about the conference are available at http://www.hartduo.com/. The “conference agenda” is well worth a look. If you’re interested in finding links to articles with titles like “Why BP May Be The Ultimate ‘Bounce-Back’ Stock,” the website may be worth browsing at some length. And finally, should you have any questions about the event (like, “Why does it cost so much?”), there are plenty of folks on staff to answer them via email.

In case anyone should like to make a more permanent presence at this event—or rather, outside of it—it should be noted that the convention actually begins on Monday, May 14th at 1:00 PM and ends at noon on Wednesday, May 16th. So, if you have spare time, feel free to greet these people as they come in, or bid them farewell as they leave, letting them know exactly what you think about their intentions to ‘develop’ “unconventional oil” in Colorado. They might tell you that it’s in the best interest of Coloradans, that it’s good for the economy, that it creates jobs, and so on.

What would you like to tell them?

The Insidious Side of Natural Gas

By Raging Yeti, Earth First! Durango

Despite the rhetoric of many mainstream environmental organizations and many “liberal environmentalists,” natural gas is not a clean energy, especially when the production process is considered in full.  Like most commodities generated in the global corporate capitalist culture, natural gas is consumed regularly without much knowledge of where it is produced, how it is produced, or the deleterious effects it has on local people and local environments.  Natural gas, like many commodities we consume, seems pleasantly ubiquitous, and without consequence.

In this short article, I will outline the insidious side of natural gas, leaving ample room for the reader to pursue this investigation further.  I will sketch out four themes subtitled below about each of which a book could be written.

Criminogenic Corporate Gas Producers

In the oil and gas industry corporate crime is rampant as it is in all corporate sectors.  In fact, corporate crime kills more people and costs taxpayers more money than all street-level crime combined.  What makes this fact so insidious is that convicted corporate criminals can go right on offending because, as Baron Thurlow so eloquently noted, “corporations have no soul to punish and no body to incarcerate.”  I would like to add to this observation that we have no valid legal system representing nonhuman and human life against the corporate murders of our planet.  This is why our planet needs engaged and enraged human agents.

As of 2009, the top ten US natural gas producers were: BP, Anadarko Petroleum, XTO Energy, Chesapeake Energy, Devon Energy, ConocoPhillips, Enccana Corp, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Williams Cos Inc. ExxonMobil has recently bought XTO energy, making it the largest producers of natural gas in the U.S.  If you were to Google any one of these companies with the terms “civil and criminal fines” behind their names, you would find numerous examples of chronic law breaking behavior ranging from insider trading, to bribery, to numerous different types of violations of the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act, to violations of OHSA safety standards leading to worker injury and death.

Take, for example, BP, one of the greatest perpetrators of ecocide on the planet.  In October 2007, the Anchorage Daily News reported that “BP agreed to pay $50 million for a felony Clean Air Act violation that killed 15 people and injured more than 170 people” in 2005 at a Texas refinery.  The paper also reported that BP paid “$303 million in connection with price manipulation of the lower 48 propane market” and another $20 million on a federal misdemeanor for spilling “an estimated 201,000 gallons of oil” in “the largest oil spill ever on the North Slope” in March 2006.  Add to BP’s criminal rap sheet the Gulf of Mexico Deep Water Horizon explosion, which took 11 human lives and created the largest marine oil spill in history, taking uncounted numbers of marine and avian life.  Only multinational corporations and nation-states can avoid incarceration for murder and ecocide.

Despite the multitude of malevolent crimes against landbases, humans and nonhuman life, multinational oil and gas producers are notorious for buying/owning our so-called federal and state representatives.   It is obvious we cannot trust multinational corporations to uphold the law, so why should we trust them to do anything, let alone produce safe and clean energy? In 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton (a company with an incredible rap sheet), was instrumental in getting the oil and gas industry exempted from disclosure sections of the Safe Drinking Water Act, and numerous other exemptions from the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, CERCLA (superfund), and the Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act.  Other than just being a Dick, why would Dick seek exemptions from all these federal laws designed to protect our landbases?  What is the natural gas industry hiding from the public?

In a recent letter written to the EPA by three U.S. representatives, it was asserted that 12 “fracking companies injected more than 32 million gallons of diesel fuel into the ground in 19 states between 2005 and 2009.  And they did it without asking for or receiving permission from environmental regulators in those states.”  The concern over diesel fuel is that it contains benzene, a carcinogen having other deleterious health effects,  “which has been detected in water supplies near drilling facilities across the country.”  Federal legislators Waxman, Markey, and DeGette, allege that oil and gas companies broke the law by violating the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which states that hydraulic fracturing using diesel fuel is subject to regulation by the EPA under the Safe Drinking Water Act.   The industry did not deny that the EPA had the authority to regulate diesel fuel in fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but claimed there are no rules in place to regulate the use of diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing.   Halliburton, BJ Services, and Schlumberger, the three largest drilling contractors, voluntarily agreed to stop using diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing in coalbed methane formations in 2003, and “the republican-led congress wrote in an exception, the so-called ‘Halliburton Loophole,’ into the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which stated that hydraulic fracturing could not be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.”  However, “the use of diesel fuel for fracking would still qualify for regulation” under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Despite a “voluntary handshake agreement” stating the industry would not use diesel fuel and a legal exception, Halliburton used 7.2 million gallon of diesel fuel and BJ Services injected 11,555,538 gallon of diesel fuel into the ground between 2005 and 2009.  The gas industry is challenging the federal legislator’s claim that they violated the law.  Industry is arguing that there were no regulations in place despite their agreement to not use diesel fuel in fracking. In fact, 32 million gallons of diesel fuel was used in 19 states, of which half was injected in Texas, and one million gallons or more was used in the following states: Oklahoma 3.3 million gallons; North Dakota 3.1 million gallons; Louisiana 2.9 million gallons; Wyoming 2.9 million gallons; and Colorado 1.3 million gallons.  It is difficult to believe or construe the oil and gas industry as anything other than a sociopathic criminogenic operation.