This paper examines the practice of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and its environmental and public health consequences in Colorado. Beginning with an overview of how fracking works and the chemicals involved, the paper surveys documented water quality complaints from communities across the United States before focusing on specific Colorado controversies. Key issues include groundwater contamination near schools in Longmont, inadequate buffer-zone regulations, and the enormous volumes of water consumed by fracking operations in a state already facing water scarcity. The paper concludes by proposing local legislative action, increased setback distances, and a broader shift toward renewable energy sources as practical alternatives to continued reliance on fracking.
Hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") is not a new approach to locating and extracting gas and oil in the United States. It has been used as a strategy since 1949, according to Earthworks, an environmental advocacy group. Fracking is a method oil and gas companies use to retrieve quantities of oil and gas trapped in shales, coalbed formations, and other underground areas that have previously been drilled. The environmental impacts of fracking can be significant, especially for neighborhoods and communities located near fracking projects. In Colorado, a number of controversies surround the process of fracking; this paper reviews those issues and proposes solutions.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been studying fracking to determine whether the tactics currently used by oil and gas companies are negatively impacting water resources in areas where fracking is conducted. The EPA had yet to issue formal guidelines on fracking, though preliminary findings were expected to be published in 2012. The specific issue the EPA focused on was water quality in communities where fracking was taking place. A central question was whether the Clean Water Act — a component of which is the Safe Drinking Water Act, signed into law in 1972, which prohibits the discharge of "any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters" — was being violated by fracking activities. Moreover, it remained unclear whether drinking water wells, aquifers, and sub-surface water sources qualified as "navigable waters," or whether the EPA would need to adjust its approach to protecting clean, safe water in light of fracking's impacts. Those questions were expected to be answered once the EPA concluded its study and issued its recommendations.
Fracking is essentially a process in which water mixed with chemicals is injected underground at very high pressures. These fluids open up fissures so that oil and gas may flow more freely from underground formations. "A number of these fluids qualify as hazardous materials and carcinogens, and are toxic enough to contaminate groundwater resources" (Sumi, 2005). In numerous cases across the country — including Alabama, West Virginia, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado — "residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations of gas wells near their homes" (Sumi). Lisa Sumi, writing for the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, documented several categories of complaints from citizens and communities located near fracking activities.
Those complaints include: (a) "murky or cloudy water"; (b) "black or gray sediments"; (c) "iron precipitates" and "black, jelly-like grease"; (d) "diesel fuel or petroleum odors"; (e) "increased methane in water"; (f) "rashes from showering"; and (g) "gassy taste and decrease or complete loss of water flow" (Sumi).
In Longmont, Colorado, citizens organized against continued fracking in their community after a gas well was drilled within 360 feet of Trail Ridge Middle School. For "at least three years, the ground water around the well was contaminated with carcinogens such as benzene, which was measured at almost 100 times the state limit" (Hooper, 2012). Compounding the problem is that under Colorado law, a gas or oil fracking operation may legally be carried out within 350 feet of a school (Hooper, p. 1). As Hooper notes, it is against the law to operate a liquor store or marijuana dispensary within 1,000 feet of a school — yet it is permissible to drill for "oil and gas" that could spew "potentially toxic chemicals into the air" within a much shorter distance (1).
The City of Longmont attempted to pass regulations preventing fracking — or any drilling — within city limits, but backed down under threat of a lawsuit by Colorado's Attorney General. Nevertheless, a ballot measure (Ballot Question 300) to prohibit fracking in the city was set for a vote in November 2012; it would also ban the storage of fracking waste within city limits.
Conservationists in Colorado called for a 1,000-foot "buffer that offers presumptive protection from public health and safety risks" (Berwyn, 2012). Bob Arrington, a resident of Mesa, Colorado, told a reporter, "They're proposing to drill 450 feet from my deck," and emphasized that "keeping the current 350-foot buffer in place is not going to help our town reduce health or safety risks from oil and gas" (Berwyn, p. 2). Mick Chiropolos, counsel for the Western Resource Advocates in Boulder, Colorado, was also quoted in the same article: "Coloradans understand that the energy industry is part of our landscape, but we need to keep neighborhoods free of heavy industrial operations and use modern technologies to protect families. Public health is not negotiable" (Berwyn, p. 3).
Another significant problem related to fracking in Colorado is the enormous volume of water required to conduct fracking operations. Every well tapped through fracking requires "1 million to 5 million gallons of water," according to John McGee, water manager for the City of Loveland, Colorado (Finley, 2012). In Firestone, Greeley, Frederick, and other Colorado cities, tanker trucks "tap hydrants to fill up" and haul water to fracking sites, where it is mixed with sand and chemicals and pumped at high pressure into the ground to release trapped oil and gas (Finley). Colorado is already experiencing water shortages, and devoting such large quantities of available water to fracking potentially jeopardizes the state's agricultural industry.
"Water consumption and drought concerns in Colorado"
"Local legislation and renewable energy as alternatives"
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