Have we done this yet? The loons are trying to shut down Colorado's Oil & Gas industry...

https://www.denverpost.com/2018/07/10/colorado-oil-gas-ballot-initiative/

More than 4 of every 5 acres of non-federal land in Colorado would be off-limits to new oil and gas drilling if voters this fall approve a proposed ballot measure that aims to significantly widen the distance wells have to be from occupied buildings and water sources, according to an analysis released this month by state energy regulators.

The report, which doesn’t directly address the initiative’s potential economic impact, comes at the fever pitch of a yearslong dispute over how and where companies access mineral rights. Supporters call the industry an engine of economic growth, whereas critics point to the fading gap between extraction sites and fast-expanding neighborhoods.

Initiative 97 would establish the minimum setback of oil and gas wells to 2,500 feet — from the current 500 feet for homes and 1,000 feet for schools. Industry advocates warn that would decimate the state’s oil and gas sector, which was cited in a recent Colorado Petroleum Council study for having generated nearly 233,000 jobs in Colorado and contributed more than $31 billion to the state’s economy.

“A 2,500-foot setback would shut down Colorado’s oil and natural gas industry and lead to a massive layoff of over 100,000 local jobs,” Scott Prestidge, spokesman for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said Monday. “We hope Coloradans read before they sign any petition that would place this dangerous measure on the ballot.”

Backers of Initiative 97 are gathering signatures to put it on the November ballot. They need to submit to the Secretary of State’s Office just over 98,000 valid signatures from voters by Aug. 6.

“Toxic, industrial and dangerous activity like fracking doesn’t belong in our neighborhoods, near our kids’ schools or near our water supplies,” said Micah Parkin, who sits on the board of Colorado Rising, a fracking watchdog group promoting the measure. “These are really common-sense regulations.”

She cited the explosion last year that killed two men and destroyed a home in Firestone as just the most visible illustration of the danger of locating oil and gas operations close to neighborhoods. The incident was blamed on a leaky flowline from a well that hadn’t been capped properly.

In the eight months following that tragedy, there were at least a dozen explosions and fires associated with industry pipelines along the Front Range, a Denver Post investigation found.

That's will be abused at every turn.  Up in my little burb they're developing so many parcels of land for residential that they are now encroaching on the O&G activity, then complaining about it.  Don't want the well near the development?  Just build homes on the edges first and reference a state law/rule/ordinance they actually follow.  The O&G developers have very generous with my town in that they develop parks and the community center is as nice as it is because of the well that was on the property.  Now all of the boulder wannabes are trying to shut it all down.

ETA - the picture in the article is up near me.  we have people up here that swear that they can 'feel' them drilling at night  one resident in that neighborhood was blaming every sniffle and ache on 'fracking' (when they were still in the drilling process).  That well was no more of a nuisance than the TWO ACTIVE LANDFILLS right behind it.

It's even worse than what was qouted above. In addition to wells, it includes pipelines. Also, buildings which require occupancy permits aren't just businesses, homes and schools. I'm at work, so read the text of 97 and check the requirements of your municipality for getting occupancy permits. You'll get the idea. The people behind 97 don't have good intentions.

The Firestone explosion is an example of development encroaching on O&G activity.  There is no way that they set up a new drill operation less than 200 ft from the home and the cut line was five feet from the foundation.  This tells me the builder cut the line and didn't tell anyone.  Certainly a tragedy, but unless they want to shut down all existing wells within 2500 feet then the example of Firestone is nothing more than tugging at the feels.

I did a quick search and didn't find anything specific about  the how the line was cut. However, the fact that it was cut 5' from the foundation and the builder was also included in the litigation leads me to believe that you're correct.

To me, it really doesn't have much to do with 97 other than the proponents are using it as part of their scare tactics.

Texas oil is gonna benefit big from this, wait and see.

I do think that the O&G operator should have done the pressure test while re-activating, but I don't think they should bear all of the fault and the proponents of 97 are being a bit fraudulent using Firestone as an example situation that would be fixed by their proposition.

Exactly

It seems this may be a non-issue.  The deadline was Aug 6 for the petitions and I can't find a single story other than the dispute between Colorado Rising and the Oregon company that they hired to collect the signatures.  I'm sure it would be headlines had they made the deadline with the requisite signatures.

"It's another twist in the spat between Colorado Rising and Direct Action Partners that unfolded in the final weeks leading up to the Aug. 6 deadline for petitions. Colorado Rising faulted Direct Action Partners, which hired the signature gatherers as independent contractors, for holding ballots hostage when the company returned to Portland. Direct Action Partners maintained the signatures were kept because of unpaid work but eventually returned them to Colorado Rising."

97 will also be a taking of rights as it will make the oil and gas inaccessible to at least a few owners. There should be compensation for these owners. 97 doesn't address this (what do you expect? It was authored by the Sierra Club). Of course, when I've challenged proponents on this, they claim that the minerals will still be accessible, just from further away.  They also say that since fracking and drilling violate others' rights (a platitude), that it's not a taking.  Watch the lawsuits pile-up if 97 passes.  Of course, I don't have much faith in today's courts following the law and otherwise, doing the right thing.

If the measure makes it onto the ballot and then passes they'll have a ready list of the 170,000 people from the petition signers to ask for more money since passage will cost the state billions.

They need to publish that list.

Let me tell you about drilling and fracking.  I have a house on 35 acres in Huerfano county.  All was fine until a company started drilling and fracking.  Soon after I and neighbors were having methane and arsenic in our well water.   Well houses exploded and people could lite a fire from their tap water.  They dumped the waste water fracking with high salinity in to an arroyo which the flowed into a river.  Several miles downstream farmers had their crops dying, fish in a lake were dying and a dairy farmers cows stopped giving milk.  He could no longer grow crops to feed them.  The oil company had to truck water in to residents for years.  The oil company  eventually pulled out and it was a battle to get them to cap the wells.
My vote will be yes on 97 with the rest of the "loons".

@RJK

I found this, but I'm not sure if it's directly related to your post.

https://www.epa.gov/hfstudy/retrospective-case-study-raton-basin-colorado

Could you provide us with some cites/links? Also, none of that stuff is happening in northern Colorado as far as I know. Did Huerfano get a really bad apple?

Regardless, 97 is so poorly written that even Polis is against it.

Seems he may be referencing issues with Pioneer and Evergreen.  Evergreen went bankrupt and Pioneer claims that they didn't utilize TBA in their fracking fluid, but the presence of TBA in water wells seems to be the issue.  I haven't been able to find anything referencing releasing fracking fluid down an arroyo.  I do not believe any pro O&G voter would be in favor of the disposal of fracking fluid in that manner.  Perhaps that is why Evergreen is bankrupt now?

ETA, it seems to have happened in 2008

@Dano523

I believe that's the faucet in the movie Gasland, correct? That's been debunked (see Frack Nation). I like the cartoon, too.

Again, the setback includes more than just wells. It includes pipelines. It's not just fracking wells. It's all wells. Not all wells are fracked. It's also a taking of mineral rights.  Did you read the text of the initiative? I did.

It's a bad initiative (it's not a bill).

If you're going to mention the destruction and towns ruined, then please provide citations and links. Rocky Flats is just like a drilling operation... but not really.

You think nuclear energy is bad? Really? This country has safe places to build plants and safe places to put the waste. It's not the 1970s anymore. That's a separate topic. Go start another thread about it.

Typical NIMBY. This is the kind of mentality that drove manufacturing offshore. You should only have power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. They think the world runs off unicorn farts.

They'll be bitching when gasoline is $5 a gallon too. Someone should make a law...

I wonder if Dano was trolling us.  Then again, plenty of people thought that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house.

The company drilling/fracking in Huerfano County was Petroglyph.  My son has 82 acres  approx 50 miles northeast of Greeley.  A company drilled on his property against his will and he couldn't stop them.  The well is about 100 yards from his house.  They gave him $5,000 to compensate for the inconvenience.  His well began to produce water that had coal dust in it.  He had to have a new well drilled and the cost negated the 5K.

Just because he owns (rents from the state) property doesn't necessarily means he owns the minerals rights.

Solution: buy the mineral rights for your property when you build your home and/or dont sell them in the first place.

I worked in the O&G industry in 2008. I find your claims hard to believe. The amount of environmental protections we had to adhere to are immense. And if you know anything about drilling and fracking, the production zones for wells are far, far below the water table.
As far as lighting a fire from your tap water, isn't that mostly false also?

Was this activity in the 1970s?

The industry has come a long, long way since then. They also didn't "frac" back then.

Your fracking diagram is laughably inaccurate.

That's why I told him it was a cartoon.

I'll never get how so many people that point to the science of things like global warming can ignore the science of fracing. It's all science, science, science until science says fracing can't hurt the water table and there has been firewater for hundreds of years...

Well, hell.  Seems it will be on the ballot.

economy and budget busting initiative on ballot

I guess we can expect a lot of money flowing in from out of state sources to back an initiative that doesn't impact them.  We should start an initiative to build a wind farm in the Hamptons.

Seems the pro-112 group is getting an assist from Nextdoor.com.  Any 'Vote No on 112' thread is deleted, but the 'Vote Yes' and 'Ban Fracking' posts get lots of life.  Lots of 'common sense regulation' and 'it's not a ban' posts too.  It is certainly seems to be growing legs in Broomfield/Westminster/Erie when the opposition is silenced.

I've seen the Broomfield Busy-body Brigade posts.

I wish that they would keep their BS off that site. I'd rather read about people helping each other find lost pets.

Weld County Calls Prop 112 A ‘De Facto Ban,’ Unanimously Votes To Oppose Setback Measure

So all those in favor of reducing our domestic production of oil and nat gas, are you also in favor of sending our sons and daughters to the Middle East to protect our oil interests there?

Won't affect me.  They already fracked the crap out of my area and made the ground water undrinkable.

Polls showing 52% voting YES. I havent seen data that the 800 polled are representative of colorado as a whole however.

Not sure what sources the Pro 112 guys are relying on, but I'd like to see them.  I've been involved with oil and gas in CO and OK on various levels and I've seen little to no credible evidence that fracking has had negative effects on ground water.  If the well does go through and aquifer, there are multiple levels of steel casing and concrete that insulates the aquifer from anything that goes down or up the well bore.  Also, fracking does not fracture and release gas or oil thousands of feet away from the well bore.  Generally, the fractures only radiate a few hundred feet or less away from the well bore.  The horizontal bores that get fracked are below the aquifers.

What is often lumped in with fracking, but isn't part of fracking is deep water well injections.  These wells, if done quick and dirty, can cause problems with aquifers and cause earthquakes - but they are not part of the fracking process.  Groups attempting to demonize fracking often cite issues with deep water well injections.

Lot of hyperbole in your post.  Do you have any support?  Fracking has been around since the late 50's and studies have yet to show any kind of long term deleterious effects, let alone "unsuitable".

Economic returns from fracking vary by reservoir and saying "short term" ignores this fact.  Fracked wells in the Niobrara-DJ have an optimal life of over 12 years.  In Oklahoma, fracked wells have been producing for 30 years plus.

BTW, it's not just the oil companies and the government that benefit.  Mineral owners have become very wealthy off the back of the oil and gas companies.  Even when the well is drilled on federal land, the county in which the well sits gets a royalty payment, so the benefit trickles down to schools, infrastructure, etc.

Many democrats have come out against 112.  Why? Its because they see the mistake that it would be.  All 112 does is take away the property rights of the mineral owners w/o compensation, which is ironic b/c that's what prop 74 is all about preventing.

Given the you can always find an activist lawyer/judge to pursue any legal action I would think that the exemption is cover from suffering through lawsuit after lawsuit thrown out there by the anti groups.  They passed an odor ordinance in Erie that immediately went to court.