Revelations Monday that Houston-based Anadarko may be sitting on up to a billion barrels of oil along Colorado’s Front Range immediately raised concerns about the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing in an area of increased residential growth in recent years.
Increasingly, air quality is becoming almost as hot a topic in Colorado communities near natural gas drilling operations as hydraulic fracturing and the potential for water contamination.
Anti-gas-drilling activists in Colorado are pointing to a 1984 case in West Virginia as the smoking gun proving the industry and government agencies that regulate it have been lying all along about hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater supplies.
Western Slope oil and gas watchdog groups this week questioned whether the new board members appointed to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) last week by Gov. John Hickenlooper will lean too heavily toward industry and Front Range concerns.
At least 22 toxic chemicals, including four known human carcinogens, were found in nine separate air samples taken near natural gas drilling operations by community advocacy and environmental groups in Garfield and La Plata counties in Colorado and the San Juan Basin of New Mexico, according to a new report from Global Community Monitor.
Eagle County’s landfill manager is considering disposing of natural gas drilling pit liners that neighboring Garfield County stopped accepting two years ago because the massive, high-density polyethylene sheets are potentially toxic and too tough to handle.
A New York City law firm today will hold a press conference on the West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol building in Denver to announce a lawsuit against a Denver-based natural gas drilling company for the alleged contamination of a Silt family’s property “leading to their forced exile from their home and serious health effects.”
Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler, according to the Denver Post, will be proposing a new set of rules that would waive or reduce a significant number of campaign finance fines for political committees that fail to file disclosure reports. As an elections law attorney for primarily conservative causes, Gessler represented groups that either flat-out failed to register with the secretary of state and later engaged in electioneering activity or failed to file disclosure reports – sometimes for years. Now he tells the Post he’ll roll out rules in the next few weeks that will make it easier to reduce or waive such fines.
Actor Mark Ruffalo didn’t win an Oscar for best supporting actor Sunday night for his role in “The Kids Are All Right,” but he did make headlines for his role supporting the anti-natural-gas-drilling documentary “Gasland,” which also came up short during the annual Academy Awards. Josh Fox’s “Gasland” film was up for best documentary – an award that went instead to “Inside Job” – and Ruffalo wore a blue water droplet pin to show his support for clean water and Fox’s investigation of the drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing, including incidents of water contamination in the gas patches of Colorado. The natural gas industry has gone to great lengths to debunk the film.
Residents of Garfield County neighborhoods impacted by natural gas drilling have been approached by a New York City firm that last year landed a $712.5 million settlement for workers injured in the World Trade Center cleanup. A representative of Napoli Bern Ripka LLP will attend a meeting of potential plaintiffs Feb. 22 at the Glenwood Springs Community Center, according to an activist group fighting to mitigate drilling impacts. Also on hand will be attorneys from the Aspen law firm of Thomas Genshaft PC.
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