Moving to CO, concerned the state allows fracking.... (Denver, Boulder: house, buying)

[xeric]

Hopefully people will connect the dots: profligate use of gasoline + desire to keep prices as low as possible = carte blanche for energy companies to drill wherever they can legally get away with it. "Drill baby Drill" isn't as appealing when it's in your backyard.

[delta07]

Originally Posted by KaaBoom

What a croc! You right-wings could care less about energy independence. You just care about immediate profits now, and zero about our future. Even with fracking, oil reserves in this country will run out within the next 40 years. Fracking is not energy independence. Its more like driving a 100 mph down a dead-end road.

If you really cared about our energy independence, you would be looking at sustainable energy alternatives. Rather then wrecking our environment and contaminating our ground water, trying to get the last few drops of oil and gas out of the ground.

Absolutely couldn't have said this better myself! As a "leftist" I would love to have energy independence at home. Clean, sustainable energy that doesn't pollute our environment and harm our children, the future of this country. But it's hard to get this when big gas and big oil have some of the most well paid lobbyists out there.

When we moved from the Western Slope 4 years ago, the gas boom was really taking off. I remember driving to and from Denver every few months and watching that area grow leaps and bounds (not to mention the number of well drill sites exploding). The last flight I took between the Front Range and GJ was at night and I blown away at the number of rigging lights out there. It used to be few and far between.

[CosmicWizard]

chilaili wrote: Call me crazy, but I don't want my tap water to suddenly contain masses amounts of methane, an explosive gas. I also don't want billions of gallons of water (that we already don't have in Colorado) to be used in the fracking process and which we don't get back. Millions of gallons of wastewater are produced which then need to be safely disposed of. This wastewater also contains contaminants (some of which are radioactive) that are dangerous to the soil, animals and humans. I also don't want the various toxic chemicals that are used in fracking to get into my ground water, soils, plants and animals, eg: hydrochloric acid, methanol, kerosene, ethylene glycol, diesel byproducts. I don't want the dozens of trucks required to get all these components to the fracking operation driving thro my town and county, adding to the traffic problems, pollution, noise, etc.

Anyone who calls you crazy IS the crazy person! Your post is a sure sign of sanity.

Delta...wanted to rep you for your post #22, but I gotta spread it around before I'm able to do that. Hopefully some one else will do so, becasue it well deserved. Thanks for writing that great post.

[CosmicWizard]

wanneroo wrote: We are $16 trillion in the hole thanks to baby boomer spending

I think the debt has more to do with PAYING INTEREST to the federal reserve which prints money out of thin air then charges interest to the US government. Get rid of the federal reserve and the debt will be quite manageable. The boomer contribution was mainly from a few wealthy criminals that have been running the country. The majority of boomers have not contributed to the debt.

[delta07]

Originally Posted by Where'sHome?

Good Morning!
Hubby and I will probably be moving to the Boulder/Denver area. My due diligence to researching schools, areas, etc., has turned up fracking incidents in the area, as well as the multitude of permits that have been issued for drill sites and that number is, quite frankly, shocking.

I see the drill sites, and the inordinate amount of homes for sale in some of these areas...Erie for example.

How bad is fracking in CO and just how much is affecting the groundwater?

Looking forward to hearing from you.....

Back to the OP's question, fracking is a real part of Colorado and the Front Range right now. Jazzlover provided some great links to show you the area that most drilling in taking place. There were also some great links about surface water vs. groundwater and what that means to you as a homeowner. If I were to relocate to the Front Range (and we are considering it), I would be really interested to know where this fracking was taking place as well. I happen to know an oil industry engineer (my uncle actually) who will tell you it's completely safe. Of course, he also chooses not to recycle, has big gas guzzling cars, and has never actually lived very close to the sites he operates on, so that tells me something. I don't think he's crooked or reckless, but I also think he's well paid by the oil company and chooses not to believe he's putting people at risk.

Bottom line, you are smart in thinking about this. At least you will feel better about your decision to relocate based on what you find.

[CosmicWizard]

richb wrote: In fact there are no cases that are the result of fracking according to the EPA.

Relying upon the EPA for accurrate data is akin to relying upon politicians to balance the budget. Relying upon the EPA to actually protect the environment is much like having monkeys guard the bananas. In my mind, the EPA is really the EnergyCompany Protection Association.

[wanneroo]

Originally Posted by delta07

Absolutely couldn't have said this better myself! As a "leftist" I would love to have energy independence at home. Clean, sustainable energy that doesn't pollute our environment and harm our children, the future of this country. But it's hard to get this when big gas and big oil have some of the most well paid lobbyists out there.

When we moved from the Western Slope 4 years ago, the gas boom was really taking off. I remember driving to and from Denver every few months and watching that area grow leaps and bounds (not to mention the number of well drill sites exploding). The last flight I took between the Front Range and GJ was at night and I blown away at the number of rigging lights out there. It used to be few and far between.

Nonsense. The free market rules. If "clean, sustainable" energy, was clean, sustainable and affordable, people would turn to it instead.

But that isn't the reality.

And many of those "clean" green forms of energy are not so clean once you take in account all the rare earths and minerals that have to be mined in order to produce batteries or solar panels. We've blown billions on research over 40 years and while some gains have been made, no one can reproduce the energy content in a gallon of oil.

Sure, as technology improves, which as long as we don't impose more hysterical baby boomer utopian restrictions on society($444 billion in regulatory costs added to the US economy under barry obama), it will, we can bring those other sources online.

But right now it isn't here and we need electricity and fuel for our cars. If you would like to live in a teepee and walk, please do so, but I would like to have a prosperous economy and be able to get to where I need to go at a reasonable cost and not freeze to death in winter.

The boomers need to stop with the apocalyptic visions and hysteria and come back to Realville where the rest of us have to live. They told us back in the 1970's oil and gas were almost gone and the world was cooling and would be an ice block. Here we are almost 40 years later with oil and gas coming out the wazoo and we haven't frozen yet.

[wanneroo]

Originally Posted by delta07

I happen to know an oil industry engineer (my uncle actually) who will tell you it's completely safe. Of course, he also chooses not to recycle, has big gas guzzling cars, and has never actually lived very close to the sites he operates on, so that tells me something. I don't think he's crooked or reckless, but I also think he's well paid by the oil company and chooses not to believe he's putting people at risk.

Bottom line, you are smart in thinking about this. At least you will feel better about your decision to relocate based on what you find.

He sounds smart to me. Recycling consumes more energy and costs than making new cups and cans(yes it does!, hey I thought that was green?) and big gas guzzling cars means more people and stuff in one trip.

If he's an oil engineer he might know what he's talking about.

[wanneroo]

Originally Posted by xeric

Hopefully people will connect the dots: profligate use of gasoline + desire to keep prices as low as possible = carte blanche for energy companies to drill wherever they can legally get away with it. "Drill baby Drill" isn't as appealing when it's in your backyard.

It's in my backyard right now in PA, literally, next farm over. The "impact" from the well is nonexistent. I would not know it's there if I drove past it. The only time when it gets noticeable is when a well is drilled and everything is hooked up. Then, after a month or so, you are left with a concrete well pad, some steel piping coming out of the ground and a few other pieces of equipment. The rest of the site is reclaimed.

We've had plenty of people visit and none of them knew this big gas boom was going on. Had no idea.

I spent 6 years of my youth next to oil and gas wells in Texas and Oklahoma and I don't have horns coming out of my head or 3 eyes. Some of my family has owned wells going back generations in Colorado and they all lived long lives.

People want to exterminate this industry under the guise of utopian fantasies but yet have no solutions other than vague protestations of "clean and sustainable" energy, whatever that is.

Nobody I know around here, myself included, wants dirty water or other issues, which is why many of us are active in various groups or at public meetings. We've even got a private organization around here that pays to check all the water in the creeks on their own(nothing yet found).

[KaaBoom]

Originally Posted by wanneroo

No they will not run out, we've got hundreds of years of supplies at a minimum and probably more. Do your research and get beyond all the alarmist nonsense.

You are the one that needs to do some research. Because you are sadly lacking even basic knowledge on the subject. You should start your research with the models for "Peak Oil" created by M. King Hubbert in 1956. Which have proven to be pretty damn accurate.



Peak oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia