Neighborhoods Worry About Living Amid Oil And Gas Development
In Northern Colorado, there are growing concerns in neighborhoods and communities about oil and gas wells sitting too close to their homes and schools. Last Spring, the danger became clearer when a cheap canada goose uk home exploded in Firestone, Colo., killing two people, after a small pipeline connected to a well began leaking odorless gas into the basement.
“We used to be canada goose store worried about asthma and cancers and ruining our water. Now we’re also worried about our houses blowing up,” said Barbara Mills Bria, of Lakewood, Colo., during a with oil and gas regulators in Denver.
buy canada goose jacket cheap In 2016, members of the oil and gas industry dumped over $15 million dollars into fighting a pair of ballot proposals. One advertisement accused “efforts to shut down oil and natural gas” as being “very devious.” buy canada goose jacket cheap
canada goose black friday sale Those proposals including one that would have increased the state setback to 2,500 feet went nowhere, but smaller changes have Canada Goose sale gone through. In 2013, after months of contentious debate, members of the Colorado buy canada goose jacket Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) voted to update the state’s setback regulations, increasing the existing distance of 150 feet in rural areas and 350 feet in urban areas to a uniform 500 feet statewide. canada goose black friday sale
Canada Goose Parka The setback from structures like above ground utilities Canada Goose Outlet and public roads was bumped up to 200 feet, from 150 feet. The original safety setback canada goose clearance sale of 150 feet was a calculation of 1.5 times the height of a drilling rig, meant to protect homes and buildings if a rig toppled over. Canada Goose Parka
The new setback of 500 feet from homes among everyone from energy companies, to farmers, to home developers, to concerned residents. It addressed nuisances like noise and lighting issues. But, according to rule making documents, there wasn’t enough data to address more serious problems like air emissions.
canadian goose jacket “There was not, in our opinion, sufficient, clear, undisputed scientific evidence to base a setback number on,” says Matt Lepore, director of canadian goose jacket the COGCC. “Frankly, nothing would make me happier than [to have] somebody to tell me 1,007.5 feet is safe for everybody. That would be fantastic. That’s not going to happen.” canadian goose jacket
Canada Goose sale But are current setbacks adequate? Researchers tried to answer that question in Canada Goose Coats On Sale a 2016 paper, published in a journal called Environmental Health Perspectives. They looked at existing setbacks in Texas, Pennsylvania and Colorado, ranging from uk canada goose outlet a few hundred feet to over a thousand. The conclusion was that these distances are not always good enough to protect people from risks like air emissions and explosions. Canada Goose sale
canada goose clearance On top of that, setbacks aren’t set in stone. In Colorado, operators can ask for permission to drill closer than 500 feet and homes can be built closer than that. canada goose clearance
Inside Energy, a public media project, found https://www.canadagoose-jackets-online.com that since 2013, on Colorado’s canada goose uk shop Northern Front Range, there are at least 220 new wells within 500 feet of homes.
In the absence of state action, some towns are trying to canada goose coats on sale pass their own setbacks. That is what Broomfield, Colo., is hoping to do before operations on a large oil and gas proposal get underway. Extraction Oil and Gas wants to put in 99 wells on four pads, close to a retirement community and a proposed school and reservoir.
cheap Canada Goose Broomfield Mayor Randy Ahrens is supporting a setback of a quarter mile, in part, because he witnessed several accidents at sites while working in the canada goose oilfield in the 1980s. When people ask Ahrens why safety is so important canada goose uk outlet to him, he takes out his phone and shows Canada Goose online them a picture of a site in Coleman, Texas, engulfed in flames a well blowout. cheap Canada Goose
“A unit lost control and the flames are about 150 foot high in the air,” Ahrens says.
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Can people co exist with oil and gas?
canada goose coats This tension between residents and oil and gas development existed long before it came to Broomfield. canada goose coats
canada goose Matthew Fry, a geographer at the University of North Texas, says he even has a jogging route based on the seven or eight wells he passes along the way. “My wife will say ‘where did you run today?’ I’ll say I did the gas well route,” he says. canada goose
Fry’s research focuses on the intersection of oil and gas and communities. He says this kind of uncomfortably close development is not new. Think of oil derricks lining beaches in Los Angeles or dotting Oklahoma City’s 1930s skyline.
Canada Goose Outlet But Fry says that these days, drilling that happens near people is more suburban than urban. Canada Goose Outlet
canada goose clearance sale Suburban drilling is growing, especially in Northern Colorado. Advances in drilling technology have allowed energy companies to access previously untapped reserves, canada goose clearance some of which happen to run underneath towns north of Denver, like Broomfield, where Extraction Oil and Gas is hoping to drill 99 wells over the course of a year or so. canada goose clearance sale
“I was shocked. I didn’t think it canada goose black friday sale would happen. I didn’t think it would get to this point. I was shocked,” Broomfield resident Becky Early said at a recent public meeting on oil and gas.
Broomfield’s oil and gas canada goose uk black friday task force has put thousands of hours into drafting new town rules, trying to have proposals finalized before drilling starts. They have gathered baseline data on air quality and analyzed regulations from other municipalities. The draft rules include recommendations like air and water monitoring, a larger minimum distance between homes and drilling and disclosure of all chemicals that could be brought on site
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canada goose coats on sale “If they understand the cheap Canada Goose preeminence of health safety and welfare, they might have an easier time getting what they want,” says Susan Phillips Speece, a member of the task force. canada goose coats on sale
buy canada goose jacket Extraction is also planning canada goose coats measures to address health and safety, and even noise and sigh of its proposed operations. buy canada goose jacket
Canada Goose online “Things like electric rigs which we introduced to this basin. The sound walls that you see,” says Brian Cain, Extraction’s head of public affairs, as he showed off the various mitigation measures in the company’s plan. Canada Goose online
Extraction also has plans to reduce truck traffic, to remove dozens of old oil and gas wells and they plan to use new quieter fracking equipment, developed by Liberty Oilfield Services.