The “front range” in eastern Colorado is residential

By Alex Nussbaum and Catherine Traywick, World Oil, 7/23/2018

NEW YORK and DENVER (Bloomberg) — For Colorado shale drillers, 2018’s been a record-setter for pumping oil and natural gas. It may also end up a banner year for the industry’s political foes.

Spurred on by a fatal gas explosion last year, industry critics are pushing an initiative for November’s ballot that may ban drilling in more than half the state, endangering output from one of the country’s most prolific drilling plays. The contest for governor, meanwhile, features a Democrat, U.S. Representative Jared Polis, who made his name in Colorado politics by bankrolling anti-fracking campaigns.

The contests could mark a turning point in the long-running battle over drilling in Colorado, a politically mixed state where explorers, environmentalists and local residents have clashed as in few other places. With polls showing a “blue wave” of support for Democrats nationwide, Polis and the ballot initiative both stand a good chance, leaving the industry’s future up in the air, according to Height Securities LLC.

“The November election in Colorado is likely an inflection point for the state’s oil and gas industry,” Height analysts Katie Bays and Josh Prico wrote in a July 11 research note. That could have “market-moving consequences” for producers with a major Colorado presence like Noble Energy, Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. and Anadarko Petroleum, they said.

As a counterpunch, business groups have pitched their own set of ballot questions that would require property owners be compensated for any loss in the market value of drilling rights due to new regulations. That could hobble local government efforts to clamp down, said Welles Fitzpatrick, an analyst for SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc.

All the initiatives face an August 6th deadline to gather enough signatures to make it onto the ballot. For voters here, the controversy is nothing new.

Advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have propelled Colorado into the upper echelon of oil and gas producers nationwide — and run smack into the growing population in the Denver suburbs and the Front Range region along the Rockies. The state produced a record 450,000 bpd of crude in April and 149 billion cu ft of natural gas, just shy of the all-time high, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

The industry’s biggest worry this year is Initiative 97, a proposal to expand the buffer zone required between oil and gas wells and homes, schools and other occupied structures. The initiative would mandate a 2,500-foot setback, up from 500 ft today.

More significantly, it would extend the requirement to cover lakes, streams, parks, open space and a variety of other “vulnerable areas.” Altogether, more than 54% of the state’s land area would be off-limits to new drilling, according to an analysis by the state Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. In Colorado’s top five producing counties, 61% of acreage would be inaccessible.

“That is effectively a ban on the industry,” Dan Haley, president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, an industry group, said in an interview. “You’d basically have no new wells drilled in Colorado.”

A similar proposal in 2016 failed to gain enough signatures to make it onto the ballot. But 2018 may be different, in part due to last year’s fatal accident in Firestone, north of Denver. Two men died and a woman was injured in a home explosion that was linked to an abandoned gas line.

The tragedy “made people understand the dangers of having toxic, industrial oil and gas operations right in the middle of our neighborhoods,” said Micah Parkin of Colorado Rising, a group backing Initiative 97. “Why should the industry get special treatment?”

The proposal wouldn’t end drilling in Colorado, Parkin said. Federal land, which covers about a third of the state, would be exempt from the buffers. And explorers can drill horizontal wells, allowing access to reserves even if the property directly above is off-limits, she said.

Even if the measure wins approval, the state’s legislature could still move to soften the blow. Republicans who’ve generally opposed more regulation of the industry have a slim majority in the state Senate, although that too could change after November’s election.

Energy and natural resources generated more than $13 billion and supported 150,000 jobs in Colorado last year, according to state figures. Initiative 97 is enough of a threat that even Polis, the Democrat who’s championed past drilling restrictions, has come out against it.

The millionaire businessman from Boulder helped finance campaigns in 2014 to tighten regulations on fracking, although they failed to make it onto the ballot. This time around, he’s dialed down some of his criticism as he seeks support across the state. His website trumpets his plans to generate 100% of the state’s energy from renewable sources by 2040. But it makes no mention of fracking, pro or con. Polis declined a request for an interview.

His Republican opponent, state Treasurer Walker Stapleton, also opposes Initiative 97. His website promises he’ll promote a “low-cost energy supply” and avoid “burdensome, job-killing regulations.”

Polis led Stapleton among likely voters, 42% to 37%, in a June poll commissioned by a Colorado labor union. The Democrat understands the state can’t afford to undermine the industry, said Fitzpatrick, the SunTrust analyst.

“He has had his come-to-Jesus moment where he can either pick his crusade against oil and gas or he can pick every other pillar in his platform,” he said. “Is he going to shoot himself in the foot because he doesn’t like oil and gas? I find that hard to believe.”

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Fracking is dangerous and not a vote-getter in New York State

Editorial, Hudson Valley (NY) Times-Herald Record, July 25, 2018

Politicians should not talk about things they don’t understand. Case in point — Republican Marc Molinaro’s support of hydraulic fracturing in New York as part of what he calls a “closely monitored” test program in the Southern Tier.

You know why he is doing this. The person most often associated with the state’s fracking ban is Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his Democratic opponent in this year’s election. For those who do not want to look too deeply into the issue, fracking has always been an attractive bright shiny object, offering energy independence and revenue with manageable environmental challenges.

In truth, it is very hard to frack without having many serious detrimental effects, including earthquakes and water pollution.

The state Health Department made the plausible case in 2014 that there was no way to provide adequate safeguards based on experiences in other states. Since then, the state’s focus has been on a shift to renewable resources, to investments in solar, air and hydro that would take the place of plants fed by any fossil fuels, including the gas that fracking produces. Investing in one means not investing in the other.

Molinaro is misleading people, and perhaps misleading himself, if he believes that a small-scale experimental operation would provide any information that would be relevant to fracking on a scale that might make economic sense.

The danger from fracking does not come from a few sites located far away from populated areas. It comes from the enormous impact that industrial-scale fracking has on the underground aquifers vulnerable to pollution. It comes in the well-documented dangers to wells and other local water supplies that those aquifers supply. And it come in even more dangerous forms in the need to create a massive infrastructure to treat the millions and millions of gallons of wastewater that fracking requires to break rock layers far below ground and then bring the fuels up.

A small convoy of tanker trucks might be able to cart away that waste water from a small experimental site. But for fracking to be worthwhile to those who want to invest, the scale would have to be enlarged to the point where treating the wastewater would be prohibitively expensive.

The Southern Tier, where Molinaro would try this experiment, is too densely populated to allow any room for error and as the number of sites increases, so do the potential detrimental effects.

Having studied and voted on this issue when he was in the Legislature, Molinaro knows or should know all this. That indicates that the proposal is more political than anything else, an attempt to get votes from those who are dissatisfied with Cuomo over the fracking ban. But those people already are not inclined to re-elect the governor, making this a wasted effort that only exposes Molinaro’s desperation as polls show him so far behind that he is not likely to catch up and donors reading those polls hold back, leaving him at even more of a disadvantage.

It’s still early, but so far the main component of Molinaro’s campaign seems to be that his is not Andrew Cuomo, something all of us already knew.

Mountain Valley Pipeline to use 42” diameter pipe

From an Article by Ken Ward Jr., Staff Writer, Charleston Gazette, April 27, 2018

This article was produced in partnership with the ProPublica Local Reporting Network. ProPublica is supporting seven local and regional newsrooms this year, including the Gazette-Mail, as they work on important investigative projects affecting their communities.

More than 26 years ago, I wrote a story about a woman named Dixie Woolum.

I had been at my paper barely six months. At the time, I thought it would be cool that I’d get a dateline from Woolum’s hometown, Cinderella, W.Va. Little did I know then how much that story’s headline — “Broken promises” — really meant in the long history of West Virginia’s relationship with coal.

Woolum’s husband, Jimmy, was a coal miner who had died years earlier.

“Dixie Woolum packed her husband’s dinner bucket every morning,” I wrote. “Jimmy left early to work in the mines outside Williamson, heart of the billion-dollar coalfield.”

I was hoping to illustrate the financial distress faced at the time by Woolum and by thousands of people like her because of the potential collapse of the United Mine Workers of America’s health care plan for retired miners and their families. Miners like Jimmy Woolum thought they were promised health care for life in a long-ago deal between President Harry Truman and legendary UMWA President John L. Lewis.

In reality, protecting that health care has been an almost constant fight, part of the root of the bitter strikes against Pittston Coal and A.T. Massey Coal, the first two in an avalanche of coal operators who tried to stop funding miner benefits and pensions the union had won in its national contract.

Coal miners and coal communities are pretty used to broken promises by now.

Congress promised in 1969 to eliminate black lung disease. But thousands of miners — including Jimmy Woolum — continued to die from it. Today, though the industry knows how to prevent black lung, there’s a resurgence of the disease among miners in Central Appalachia.

Coalfield residents were promised that strip mines would be reclaimed, but most states haven’t required companies to set aside nearly enough money for cleanups, setting the stage for a financial crisis as the industry’s decline puts more and more companies at risk of failing.

Most of all, coalfield communities were promised prosperity — and today some of the places that have produced the most coal are among the region’s poorest.

How can this be?

It’s a crucial question to ask, especially at this critical time in West Virginia, as the state rushes forward with its new relationship with the natural gas industry.

Coal has done a lot for West Virginia. Generations of miners earned a good living, especially after the state’s coalfields were unionized. As Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., likes to remind people in Washington, coal helped win two world wars and built our nation into a global superpower.

The industry’s downsides are, if not always acknowledged by political leaders, well-documented. The great Appalachian historian John Alexander Williams listed coal’s “repetitive cycle of boom and bust, its savage exploitation of men and nature, and its seemingly endless series of disasters,” in an often-cited passage from his seminal history of the state.

And now, in the face of a major decline in the coal industry, families and entire communities that depended on it are hurting.

What will coal leave behind? Many in West Virginia are starting to understand the painful answers to that question: Abandoned mine lands, abandoned pension plans, polluted streams, empty government coffers — giant challenges for local communities in supporting schools and other basic needs.

At the same time, political leaders and business boosters are pointing to natural gas as the way out of West Virginia’s downward spiral, as the answer to our state’s economic problems.

But others worry that the state is headed down the same road with natural gas that it’s been on with coal.

We’ve just published a story detailing those similarities. Earlier this year, for example, Gov. Jim Justice proposed and then quickly backed away from a natural gas tax earlier to help fund our state’s schools. Gov. William Marland did the same thing with a proposed coal tax in the 1950s.

And Marland was far from the first to offer warnings about West Virginia’s wealth being dug from the ground and hauled out of state.

As early as 1884, a state Tax Commission report said, “The question is whether this vast wealth shall belong to persons who live here and who are permanently identified with the future of West Virginia, or whether it shall pass into the hands of persons who do not live here and care nothing for our state except to pocket the treasures which lie buried in our hills.”

In this series of stories, with the help of ProPublica, I hope to bring readers here in West Virginia, and those around the country, a clearer view of how history could be repeating itself.

For example, as my first story illustrates, West Virginia lawmakers and regulators have moved quickly to give gas developers broad latitude to operate, weakening environmental and public safety rules that govern the industry. Over the course of the year, I plan to more fully illustrate the ways the gas boom and what it brings with it are changing our communities and our landscape.

I also plan to look at the impact on workers. Are the jobs from the Marcellus Shale gas boom really going to West Virginians, or are companies bringing in seasoned hands from Texas and Oklahoma? Unlike our experience with coal, is West Virginia using the wealth created during this boom to plan and prepare for some day in the future when the gas is gone and we need a more diverse economy?

Who is in the room when decisions about the gas industry are being made? Are our communities empowered, or are government officials and gas lobbyists working out deals behind closed doors?

Hopefully, the stories about this crossroads in our state will shine some light on how West Virginia can learn from our past and the experience of people like Dixie Woolum. Follow along, and please tell us your stories, about your experience with the coal or the natural gas industry in West Virginia.

You can email us at changingwv@wvgazettemail.com or call 304-348-1702. You can also send us regular mail to Ken Ward Jr., Charleston Gazette-Mail, 1001 Virginia Street, East., Charleston, W.Va., 25301 Plus, we’ll be giving you more information in the days to come about how to take part in this conversation.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702, or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.

Sandstone bricks off Pawnee Co. Bank (9/2/16)

From Oklahoma City, Associated Press, April 7, 2018

Sandstone bricks from the historic Pawnee County Bank litter the sidewalk after an early morning earthquake in Pawnee, Oka., on Sept. 3, 2016.

COVINGTON, Okla. — The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has directed a wastewater disposal well to reduce its volume of injection after more than a dozen earthquakes rattled part of northwest Oklahoma since Friday, April 6, 2018.

The U.S. Geological Survey recorded three quakes Monday, including one near Covington now rated magnitude 4.5 after a preliminary rating of 4.3. Magnitude 3.3 and 2.8 quakes were also recorded Monday in the area about 55 miles north of Oklahoma City.

Garfield County Emergency Management Director Mike Honigsberg says there are no reports of injury or severe damage. Damage typically begins with magnitude 4.0 or stronger earthquakes, but Honigsberg notes that the area is very rural.

Many of the thousands of earthquakes in Oklahoma in recent years have been linked to wastewater injection by oil and natural gas producers.

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Parts of Oklahoma now have the same earthquake risk as California — and a new study found a scarily direct link to fracking

From an Article by Erin Brodwin, Business Insider, February 2, 2018

Oklahoma is being pummeled by earthquakes, a phenomenon scientists have strongly tied to wastewater injection and the practice of fracking.

A new study highlights just how strong that connection is. According to the US Geological Survey, the earthquake threat level in some parts of the state may now be approaching the level for some parts of California.

Over the course of a few days in August, Oklahoma was pummeled by seven earthquakes. The wave started on a Tuesday night, when five quakes struck the central part of the state in less than 28 hours. The shaking continued extended into the early hours of Thursday as two more hit.

Although none of those quakes was severe enough to cause significant damage, scientists are increasingly concerned about their cause. Rather than emanating from natural tectonic shifts deep inside the Earth, these temblors appear to be the result of human activity.

Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, involves jamming water deep into the Earth’s layers of rocks to force open crevices and extract the oil or gas buried inside. For several years, researchers have shown a link between wastewater injection, a process that’s used to dispose of waste fluids from a number of industrial activities and is similar to fracking, and the incidence of earthquakes in a region, but a new study highlights just how strong that connection is.

The authors of the latest paper, published this week in the journal Science, found that they could use the depth of the wastewater injection sites to roughly predict how big the earthquake they caused would be.

In other words, the deeper the injection site, the stronger the quake.

The researchers were confident enough in their assertions to make a recommendation:”Reducing the depth of injections could significantly reduce the likelihood of larger, damaging earthquakes,” Thomas Gernon, an associate professor of earth science at the University of Southampton, wrote in an article for The Conversation.

Oklahoma’s earthquake threat level is now predicted to be roughly the same as California

Until recently, earthquakes in Oklahoma were few and far between. In 2010, the state experienced just 41 tremors. By comparison, Southern California has about 10,000 earthquakes each year.

But that disparity may be shrinking. According to a forecast from the US Geological Survey, the risk of a significant and damaging earthquake in some parts of Oklahoma is now roughly the same as the risk in parts of California.

“The chance of having Modified Mercalli Intensity VI or greater (damaging earthquake shaking) is 5-12% per year in north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas, similar to the chance of damage caused by natural earthquakes at sites in parts of California,” the forecast reads.

Over the past few years, Oklahoma has weathered hundreds of significant quakes— more than 900 in 2015 alone, according to The Conversation — as have parts of several other Midwestern states. The region is replete with eons-old fault lines that went quiet long ago, but wastewater operations appear to be re-awakening some of those faults.

Much (but not all) of that wastewater injection is associated with the fracking boom, which has led the practice to become more common in recent years, especially in Oklahoma.

“Our study is just the first step,” Gernon said. “We need the support of researchers, operators and regulators, to ensure this approach has a lasting impact on reducing man-made earthquakes.”

Ethane cracker chemical complex in planning for Ohio Valley

From a Pulse Item by Choi Jae-won and Choi Mira, Maeil Business News (Korea), January 30, 2018

Daelim Industrial Co., a South Korean construction and petrochemical company, will put up about $131 million to establish a petrochemical complex in Ohio, the United States, in partnership with Thailand’s largest petrochemical and refining firm PTT Global Chemical (PTTGC).

The company announced in a disclosure that it plans to sign an investment agreement with PTTGC’s U.S. subsidiary PTTGC America to construct and jointly operate an ethane cracking center (ECC) that discomposes ethane to produce ethylene and a polyethylene plant. It said it would invest up to 140 billion won ($130.7 million) in the joint project. Details of the plan including the size of investment and stake share will be worked out by the end of this year.

Ohio is home to shale gas reserves and rich in ethane. Its geographic proximity to the U.S. eastern region that takes up 70 percent of the country’s polyethylene market also could save logistics cost.

Once operation begins four to five years later, the complex will produce 1.5 million tons of ethylene and polyethylene a year.

Shares of Daelim Industrial are publicly traded in Seoul (South Korea).

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See also the reports on Plastics and Toxic Chemicals at “Living on Earth” (loe.org)

Protest flyer on floor in Boulder, CO

Anti-fracking group protests Boulder orchestra over oil company donations

From an Article by John Bear, Boulder Daily Camera, May 5, 2017

A flier from protesters is pictured on the floor during a performance Friday at the Macky Auditorium on the Univerisity of Colorado campus in Boulder.

Boulder Chamber Orchestra performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony on Friday evening with tickets available free to students from Boulder Valley, St. Vrain Valley and Jefferson County school districts.

However, East Boulder County United, an anti-fracking group, is taking issue with the orchestra taking donations from Extraction Oil and Gas protested prior to the performance at Macky Auditorium on Friday night.

“We are concerned citizens and we are doing this for the protection of our families,” EBCU member Kristin McLean said. “We aren’t doing this to be disruptive, but to bring awareness that Boulder County is about to be fracked because as of May 1, it’s legal.”

Boulder County had a series of consecutive moratoriums in place since February 2012 against accepting and processing new applications for oil and gas development in unincorporated parts of the county. The latest one ended at the conclusion of the workday on Monday.

A representative from the Boulder Chamber Orchestra declined to comment, but the board of directors provided the Daily Camera with a statement on Friday, saying that organizations like it rely on donations from individuals and corporations because of cuts to arts funding during the past several decades.

The statement went on to say that donations it received for the Beethoven symphony will go to providing free tickets to public school students.

“We understand corporate donations may present difficult and controversial issues,” the statement continued. “But we viewed the acceptance of funds as way of ensuring that some good can come from otherwise divisive issues surrounding corporate stewardship.”

McLean said seven activists blew whistles inside the auditorium and distributed information regarding the dangers of fracking — both vocally and by flier. She said the activists bought $562 of tickets, a statement that could not be immediately confirmed with Boulder Chamber Orchestra on Friday night.

She said that the group did not disrupt the performance, but the whistle-blowing prompted a response from University of Colorado police, who stayed through the second movement of the symphony.

EBCU earlier this week posted a message on its Facebook page calling on people to make their misgivings known with regard to the orchestra accepting money from an oil company. The orchestra’s Facebook page has multiple comments to that effect posted on it.

Extraction Oil and Gas spokesman Brian Cain said it was unfortunate that the orchestra was being criticized for taking money from his company.

He said his company has a “broad and very comprehensive corporate giving program.

“It is unfortunate that a group of individuals would try to for political reasons, or their own political stance, try to block an orchestra playing for high school students,” he said. “Supporting the organizations that make up the fabric of our community is where we should all find common ground.”

A portion of the ticket proceeds from Friday night’s performance go to the American Civil Liberties Union, Emergency Family Assistance Association and Out Boulder County.

“Climate Change” Purged From White House Website

From an Article by Andy Rowell, Oil Change International, January 22, 2017

Women & Families are speaking out!

As the Trump Administration Sunday descended into a farce of “alternative facts” to try and argue that there had been historic numbers at the new President’s inauguration, it is quite clear “alternative” and blatantly bogus facts, will be used on energy and climate too.

Within minutes of the president being inaugurated on Friday, the White House’s webpage got a make-over, reflecting Trump’s post-truth, pro-oil agenda.

The White House removed pretty much all references to climate change.

Out went Obama’s message on climate change, where you could see the ex-president saying “our children, and our children’s children, will look at us in the eye and they’ll ask us, did we do all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem and leave them a cleaner, safe [sic], more stable world?”

That box has now been deleted and replaced by Trump’s “America First Energy Plan” which is an oilman’s Drill-baby-drill dream come true.

The page states:

“Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own.”

This pro-oil agenda is reflected in Trump’s proposed cabinet. Even the ever-impartial Financial Times noted that: “As Donald Trump moves into the White House, it would be hard to dream up a cabinet friendlier to fossil fuels.”

Such is the optimism about Trump from fossil fuel investors that since his election, investors have pumped nearly $4 billion into the U.S. energy sector.

But whilst the President might be able to ignore climate change on paper and by the people he picks for his cabinet, he will not be able to ignore climate change in the real world.

Trump’s energy plan concludes with the concept of “a brighter future depends on policies that stimulate our economy, ensure our security and protect our health.”

As Newsweek points out:

“The missing piece is a plan to address climate change. The future will not be brighter if the coasts are inundated by rising sea levels. Florida could be hit hard, as could Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Separated from the mainland by the Intracoastal Waterway, Palm Beach is only seven feet above sea level. If Trump wants a brighter future, perhaps he should move to higher ground.”

Likewise, Trump may want to drill every last drop of oil and gas from under U.S. lands, but this may not be as easy as he thinks.

For a Billionaire businessman it seems Trump does not understand simple supply and demand economics.

Once again the Financial Times is skeptical: “The idea that expanding where companies can drill, easing the process of getting a permit and scrapping efforts to curb carbon emissions ‘will unleash an energy revolution,’ as the Trump transition website put it, is untested. If more supplies do flow, they could depress energy prices and punish investors.”

The more shale that is produced, the more it will undermine coal. If Trump subsidies coal, it will undermine shale. The majority of shale is on private land and not on federal land. That is subject to jurisdiction from the states, rather than the Federal Government.

Trump may want to try and undo Obama’s legacy on climate, but the Financial Times argues this could take “years to undo.” Trump’s rhetoric maybe simple, but life is more complicated in the real world.

And Trump will face huge pressure from the international community on climate too. Xie Zhenhua, the veteran Chinese climate negotiator said last week: “The international community and U.S. citizens will pressure the Trump Administration to continue clean energy policies.”

The person they would lobby is the U.S. Secretary of State. Later today, Rex Tillerson, the ex-Exxon boss could be approved for that post.

Yes, we face the most pro-fossil fuel cabinet in generations. But every day the resistance to this extreme Trump agenda grows stronger. Just witness the amazing scenes from the women’s marches last Saturday from around the world. Look at those pictures and draw hope.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

SAVE Colorado's Thompson Divide (green)

Urge BLM to Protect the Thompson Divide! Take Action Today!

From: Thompson Divide Coalition, www.savethompsondivide.org

BLM is proposing to cancel 16 undeveloped, improperly-issued leases in the heart of the Thompson Divide. Many of these public minerals (yes, they belong to the public) were issued for the absolute minimum of $2/Acre. To make matters worse, the BLM issued these leases without adequate environmental review and without notifying local governments or stakeholders, a key component of federal law.

CLICK HERE: Urge the BLM today to follow the Forest Service’s lead! Thank them for proposing to cancel leases in the Divide and urge them to stand with our communities today.

The mission of the Thompson Divide Coalition is to secure permanent protection from oil and gas development on Federal lands in the Thompson Divide area including the Thompson Creek and Four Mile Creek watersheds, as well as portions of the Muddy Basin, Coal Basin, and the headwaters of East Divide Creek.

Why We Need to Save the Thompson Divide Area

The Thompson Divide area covers 221,500 acres of Federal land in Pitkin County (88,100 acres), Gunnison County (51,700 acres), Garfield County (43,500 acres), Mesa County (30,500 acres) and Delta County (7,700 acres). In 2003 the Bush Administration issued 81 mineral leases in the Thompson Divide. There are currently 61 active lease holdings in the area covering approximately 105,000 acres. Half of the leases are in roadless areas and do not contain surface stipulations.

Our rural economies in and around the Roaring Fork Valley rely, in part, upon existing uses in the Thompson Divide area. Collectively, hunting, fishing, ranching, and recreation in the Thompson Divide area support nearly 300 jobs and $30 million in annual economic output for our local communities.

Recognizing the importance of existing uses in the Thompson Divide area, Senator Michael Bennet has introduced the Thompson Divide Withdrawal and Protection Act in the United States Senate. Bennet’s bill offers a middle-ground solution to the ongoing conversation about the Thompson Divide’s future. If passed, the legislation would withdraw unleased public minerals in the area, and provide an opportunity for existing leases to be retired should they be donated or sold by willing owners.

Existing leases in the Thompson Divide amount to less than 1 percent of active leases on public lands in the entire state of Colorado; meanwhile, 99 percent of the lands in the Thompson Divide area are used for agriculture, sporting and recreation.

Development in the Thompson Divide area is not a “game-changer” for Colorado’s oil and gas industry, but development in the area could seriously impact rich and vibrant rural economies built around existing uses in the Thompson Divide.

Colorado is already doing its part to supply the nation with natural gas. Garfield County, for example, has more than 10,000 active oil and gas wells and produces nearly twice as much natural gas and coal-bed methane as any other county in the state.

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Take Action in the Thompson Divide with the Sierra Club

Dear Friends,

A beautiful national forest and habitat for wildlife are at risk from oil and gas drilling.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) just released its Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) analyzing 65 unlawfully issued leases for oil and gas drilling in the White River National Forest, including leases in the Thompson Divide. The good news is that BLM is proposing to cancel 25 leases in the Thompson Divide. The bad news is that BLM’s latest plan also abandons important protections for 27 other unlawful oil and gas drilling leases.

Allowing the oil and gas industry to drill on unlawful leases within the White River National Forest is the wrong decision. Take action today to stop these leases.

BLM’s latest plan rolls back protections that were proposed as recently as last November in its own Draft EIS for lands in the Willow Creek, Mamm Peak, and Battlement Mesa areas. The plan would reaffirm more than 40 percent of the total unlawful drilling leases, without adequate resource protections.

The Battlement Mesa, Mamm Peak, and East Willow areas lie within and immediately west of the Thompson Divide. These areas are just as ecologically important as the lands where BLM has proposed to cancel leases. They contain pristine wildlife habitat, roadless lands, sensitive fish species, rare plants, and unstable and erosive soils.

But this decision isn’t final — we still have one last opportunity to influence the final decision and convince the agency to adequately protect all of the lands that were unlawfully leased.

Take action today to urge decision-makers to protect our public lands, wildlife, and our climate by canceling all of the oil and gas leases in the White River National Forest.

We should be protecting national forests for the enjoyment of wildlife and recreation — not digging them up to burn fossil fuels that will harm our climate. Let’s make sure BLM makes the right decision.

Thank you for speaking out,

Lena Moffitt, Director, Sierra Club Fuels Campaign

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Limited Shale Potential in North Carolina

Documentary ‘Fracking Stories’ screened at Cameo Art House

From an Article by Andrew Barksdale, Fayetteville Observer, NC, May 25, 2015

A collection of short documentaries describing the dangers of hydraulic fracturing was screened in downtown Fayetteville. The true stories were told by residents in states where oil and natural gas are being extracted from deep below the earth through a controversial process commonly referred to as “fracking.”

In one Colorado community, parents said their children developed asthma and allergies and had nose bleeds as a result of living next door to stations that burn off excess gas or condense it for transport.

In a Texas town, church members talked about the division between those who are earning money from royalty payments generated by horizontal drilling. “But for those who are getting sick, it has become a curse to our community,” one church member told the camera.

In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers were hoping this year to join the energy boom that has brought new wealth and job growth in those states. But two pending lawsuits over how North Carolina’s fracking rules were drafted have led a Wake County Superior Court judge earlier this month to temporarily halt the issuance of any drilling permits until the state Supreme Court decides the issue this summer.

The audience of 15 people who went to the Cameo Art House to watch the 36-minute “Fracking Stories” film was sympathetic to its anti-fracking message, and some expressed concerns over the news last week that core samples under a state contract would be drilled in Fayetteville soon to determine whether oil and gas deposits exist.

In the film, the residents call themselves “fracktivists,” because they have actively sought to restrict the industry in their backyards.

Donna Andrews, a Fayetteville resident, asked if Fayetteville officials have concerned themselves with taking the same course against fracking. Denise Bruce, the green action coordinator for Sustainable Sandhills, said state laws would preempt any local rules that would seek to outlaw the fracking industry from operating within a jurisdiction. “Are you saying they can do what they want?” Andrews asked. Bruce answered, “Pretty much.”

Sustainable Sandhills, a Fayetteville-based environmental nonprofit, was responsible for bringing “Fracking Stories,” which has scheduled a repeat screening for June 4 at 7 p.m. at the Cumberland County Headquarters Library.

Geological studies indicate a shale basin extending through parts of Lee, Moore and Chatham counties have the most potential for gas exploration, and state Republican officials have said horizontal drilling and fracking can be done more safely today, thanks to improved technology and a modern set of rules.

One of Saturday’s audience members, Connie Blacketer, 59, is not convinced those state officials are correct. “I think everyone needs to become informed so that they will have a really good idea of what this could do to our environment and to our health,” she said.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

North Carolina Judge Says No to Fracking

From an Article by Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatch.com, May 21, 2015

A judge in North Carolina has blocked the start of fracking in that state over a challenge to the membership of the commission charged with issuing the permits. “Finally some good news in our long battle to keep fracking out of NC!” exulted North Carolina environmental nonprofit Haw River Assembly, one of the parties to the lawsuit.

The Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) was granted the preliminary injunction it sought in Wake County Superior Court to delay the state’s Energy and Mining Commission from taking any action on permits, effectively reinstating (for the time being) the state’s longtime moratorium on fracking which was lifted by the legislature last summer. The group was representing the Haw River Assembly, a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance network, and landowner Keely Wood Puricz, whose property abuts a tract leased for natural gas exploration.

“The citizens of North Carolina deserve to have a lawful, accountable and representative agency to put in place strong protections that safeguard our communities and water supplies from the risks and harms of fracking,” said Elaine Chiosso, executive director of the Haw River Assembly. The group has members who live directly above shale deposits that could be targeted for fracking.

The dispute revolves around what SELC and the parties it represents see as an unconstitutional attempt by the state legislature to control the commission and violate the state’s separation of powers. After establishing the commission in 2012, it gave itself the power to appoint eight members to the governor’s five. Governor Pat McCrory, along with two former North Carolina governors, is challenging the practice in a separate lawsuit. The legislature used the same tactic to keep control of the state’s Coal Ash Commission, Oil and Gas Commission, and North Carolina Mining Commission.

“The decision stopped any immediate harm to North Carolina residents from a commission formed by the state legislature in violation of the separation of powers firmly established in our state constitution pending further court deliberations,” said John Suttles of SELC, who represented the parties challenging the commission’s membership.

“This attempt by the North Carolina legislature to expand its legislative power and usurp executive authority violates the separation of powers firmly established in our state constitution,” added Derb Carter, SELC senior attorney and director of its North Carolina offices. “As a result, we have a commission making important decisions about the future of North Carolina that is ultimately accountable to no one. We are seeing emerging and increasing opposition to fracking in North Carolina, and this will allow the public in many ways to continue to voice their concerns.”

While North Carolina is not known as a gas-rich state, there are believed to be some deposits in a strip of counties in the central part of the state, south of Wake County (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill). It’s unclear exactly how much gas that area could produce.

“Approximately 59,000 acres in rural Lee County alone are expected to be targeted for drilling, with unknown additional acreage in Chatham, Moore and Durham Counties,” says North Carolina-based social justice/family farmer advocacy group Rafi-USA, which warns against “compulsory pooling” forcing landowners to sell their mineral rights. “Over 9,400 acres in Lee County have already been leased by gas companies under predatory mineral rights leases. Always speak with a lawyer when considering signing a lease.”

“Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have been used in parts of the Midwest for years, and are now being used in Pennsylvania and New York as well,” it warns. “Landowners and farmers in these states have expressed concerns about the effects that drilling have on their lives and livelihoods.”

N.C. Fracking Protest -- October 2012

Mayfly on Fishing Rod

Mayflies, wastewater and the health of our natural water sources

From an Article by David Katz, Preserve the Beartooth Front, May 26, 2014

The life of the mayfly is one of nature’s amazing stories. They spend their first three years under water in the larval stage, and then emerge for a quick but eventful run as adults, with wings and reproductive organs but no way to ingest food, bite or sting. In the 24 hours or so they spend in adulthood, they become what one zoologist calls “little flying sex machines.” Their sole purpose is to reproduce.

What does that have to do with oil and gas drilling?

Potentially a lot. A recent study by the Stroud Water Research Center found that even highly-diluted levels of fracking wastewater, as low as 0.25% over a period of 20-30 days, could have a deadly effect on an insect known for its fragile beauty and long-considered a key indicator of stream health.

According to Senior Research Scientist John Jackson, who led the study, “Mayflies are a very reliable indicator of whether a stream is healthy or not healthy. When it comes to streams, we want to see vibrant communities of mayfly species there. So their conspicuous absence in a stream tells us something isn’t right. It’s not an environment where they are thriving.”

Key results of the study, which looked at mayflies, water fleas and fathead minnows:

• • Half the mayflies across three species studied died after 20-30 day exposures to concentrations of less than 0.5% produced water.
  • Among the mayflies that survived to reach the adult stage, development time slowed, indicating they were stressed.
  • Reproduction rate was significantly reduced in two of three species and somewhat reduced in the third, mostly because mortality increased and development time slowed.
  • The water flea was less sensitive than mayflies to produced water, but the fathead minnow was more sensitive than mayflies.

The mayfly in Montana
Montana contains 109 species of mayflies. The scientific order name is Ephemeroptera, Greek for “brief adult life.” The French call the aquatic insects éphémères, or “one-day flies.” Montana Outdoors describes them as “looking like miniature angels when flying and, with their delicate upturned wings, tiny sailboats when floating on the water.” They are an essential part of the food chain that keeps our natural water vital.

The mayfly hatch begins in March each year with the blue winged olive mayfly, a creature so prolific that it hatches three times a year, continues throughout the summer, and closes in October.

This study is a reminder of how vulnerable our natural water is. Very low levels of contamination from fracking wastewater can kill off the mayflies and ruin the health of our streams and rivers. We need to take responsibility as a community to make sure our water is protected. We can’t expect anyone will do it for us.

I’ll leave you with this lovely scene from A River Runs Through It, in which the Craig Scheffer character says they’re biting on “Bunyan Bug Stonefly #2.” I can’t really tell the difference between mayflies and stoneflies. Perhaps you can.

North Dakota

North Dakota requires compensation for surface owners

As reported in the Western Livestock Journal, February 1, 2013 

Recognizing the concerns of surface owners who do not own the minerals, North Dakota law has been modified through the years to offer the surface owner more property protection rights; the key legislation at this time is the Surface Damage Compensation Act, which defines two categories of surface damage. The first category is damage and disruption and the second is loss of production. The legislation includes examples of compensable damages, such as lost land value, lost use of and access to land, and loss value of improvements.

The mineral developer must provide the surface owner a notice of planned activities (seven days for activities that do not disturb the surface and 20 days for oil and gas drilling operations) and a written offer to compensate for damages through a surface compensation agreement. If the surface owner does not accept the agreement the parties can proceed in court.

However, in an effort to reduce the number of court proceedings, the North Dakota Legislature has directed the Department of Agriculture to provide mediation service for the surface owners and mineral developers. This statute also states that these payments are intended to compensate the surface users, such as a farm tenant.

The anticipated network of pipelines that is intended to reduce truck traffic and gas flaring is leading to a need for pipeline easement. Executing the easement is an opportunity for a surface owner to thoughtfully specify what rights are being granted….

Surface users and mineral owners may be told when they are offered a lease, compensation agreement or document to create an easement that states “this is standard language” or that it is “a standard document.” However there is no such thing as a standard document.

Mineral owners and landowners should not feel obligated to accept the first offer. They should take their time and review the document, consider their situation, assess whether the document addresses their needs and concerns, and seek outside council if they so desire…

David Saxowsky, North Dakota State University, prepared this article in the Western Livestock Journal. Professor Saxowsky teaches Farm and Agribusiness Management and related subjects, and maintains the ND Oil and Gas Law site at this site.