The form of natural gas drilling called fracking has caused livestock and crops to die from tainted water, people in small towns to black out and develop headaches from foul air, and flames to explode from kitchen taps. In response to concerns about these and other impacts, state officials announced on June 7 that they will review Colorado’s fracking regulations. While this may be heartening to some, this review promises to provide little protection for Colorado residents. Instead, we need to end this destructive practice.
Many state and federal lawmakers see natural gas as the answer to our nation’s need for new energy sources. However, in recent years, we have learned that extracting gas through fracking poses unacceptable risks to the public. Fracking uses large quantities of water and a cocktail of toxic chemicals that have been shown to poison water resources. To date, thousands of cases of water contamination have been reported near drilling sites around the country. In many cases, residents can no longer drink from their taps, and in one instance, a home near a fracking site exploded after a gas well leaked methane into its tap water.
These problems have hit home here in Colorado. In Garfield County, 8,000 natural gas wells have inched closer to residential areas. A hydrological study found that as the number of gas wells in this heavily fracked county increased, methane levels in water wells also rose. In 2008, a wastewater pit in Colorado leaked 1.6 million gallons of fluid, which migrated into the Colorado River.
The correlation between fracking and serious public health problems is further reinforced by studies conducted by the Colorado-based Endocrine Disruption Exchange, which found that 25 percent of fracking chemicals can cause cancer and 40 to 50 percent can affect the nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems.
In addition to poisoning our water, air, homes and bodies, fracking also is eroding the quality of life in rural America. In Wise County, Texas, properties with gas wells have lost 75 percent of their value. While companies promise minimal impacts, fracking often devastates farming and ranching operations when fracking fluids contaminate water supplies, sometimes even killing livestock and crops.
Despite these detrimental effects, we are currently on a fracking spree. Between 2000 and 2010, shale gas increased to 20 percent from 1 percent of the U.S. natural gas supply. This growth has been fueled by the natural gas industry, which spent more than $370 million lobbying between 2005 and 2010.
Ground zero for this boom is Colorado, where more than 27,000 wells have been drilled, and new well permitting has increased substantially. Weld County is reported as one of the leading agricultural counties in Colorado and the United States. It also produces vast quantities of Colorado milk for families.
Weld County has 10,000 oil and gas wells. Ranchers and farmers are dependent on water resources, yet fracking consumes billions of gallons of the local water supply. Multiple oil and gas exemptions placed in the 2005 Energy Policy have allowed the natural gas industry to expand rapidly while doing little to protect consumers. Fracking is exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act and companies are not legally required to disclose the chemicals used in fracking operations, claiming them as proprietary “trade secrets.”
In 2009, the Colorado legislature approved fracking regulations which prescribe disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking operations to officials and emergency personnel only. State officials recently announced that an entity called STRONGER will review these regulations. However, this organization, while joined by a few representatives from the environmental community, is comprised largely of state and industry officials, including representatives from Chevron and the Independent Petroleum Association of America. In contrast, other states are taking more robust action to protect the public. In New York and New Jersey, legislators are considering bills that would ban fracking for natural gas. In Maryland, there is a de facto moratorium on drilling pending additional studies. To date, more than 50 municipalities across the U.S. have passed measures against fracking.
Colorado state officials must not wait for federal action or rely on industry to help write lax regulations. Horizontal and directional hydraulic fracturing poses a significant threat to our health, water and air. It’s time to end this practice and invest public resources in sustainable renewable-energy sources. Colorado’s long-term economic health and our environment depend on it.
Sam Schabacker is senior organizer for Food & Water Watch, a consumer advocacy organization.
Also contributing to this commentary were Gopa Ross, Oil and Gas Committee Chair, Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Bob May, Council Coordinator, MoveOn.org‘s Denver-Metro Council.