Frack attack: Controversial oil extraction technique being used in Longmont area

By Mark Collins
For the Longmont Ledger

A phone call Lisa Langer and her husband took at their home in southeast Longmont in 2007 was unexpected.
A man on the other end of the line explained he was from an oil and gas company and that his company intended to drill for natural gas on the Langer’s farm. He said his company, EnCana, owned the mineral rights attached to their property.
“We were surprised,” Langer said. “But when they called we went back and looked at our paperwork and we saw the leases (to underground mineral rights) that were signed in the ’70s. We knew we had no rights.”

A fracking rig set up near houses in Niwot. Courtesy photo.

Colorado common law gives mineral-rights owners the power to reasonable use of the surface property. For the Langers, and dozens of other property owners in the agricultural region in the eastern portion of Boulder County, that means new access roads, drilling rigs and gas wells.

And it means regular water testing.
Critics of the current laws that address natural gas drilling in the United States say there’s not enough regulation of the practice to ensure public-health safety. In August, residents in Pavilion, Wyo., 130 miles west of Casper, drew regional attention when they convinced the Environmental Protection Agency to study their drinking water.
According to reports, the EPA found traces of compounds such as arsenic, barium, cobalt and copper in the water. Whether or not drilling for natural gas in Pavilion led to the contamination has yet to be proven.
However, in 2006, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, fined EnCana Corporation $370,000 for “failure to prevent intermingling of the gas and water strata” in Garfield County during drilling operations.
The intermingling, critics say, can come from hydraulic fracturing, a process in which oil and gas companies force a mixture of sand, water and chemicals underground in order increase the flow of gas into gas wells. The process is commonly called “fracking.”
A new documentary by Santa Fe N.M.-based filmmaker Debra Anderson titled “Split Estate” explores public-health issues that have cropped up in the wake of heavy gas drilling in western states. The film will screen Nov. 14 and 15 at the Starz Denver Film Festival.
During filming, Anderson encountered many landowners in western states, including Colorado, who have suffered health issues after oil and gas companies began drilling on or near their land.
“At first they’re shocked that they can’t stop it, even if they have a lawyer and some money,” Anderson said. “Then it’s like this slowly unfolding horror story once the worst news turns into worse news.
“The stuff that takes the longest to show up is the health effects.”
So far, Boulder County has a relatively low number of operating gas wells, compared to other parts of the state. According to statistics provided by the COGCC, there are 272 producing gas wells in the county.
Next door, however, Weld County is the busiest county in Colorado, in terms of new drilling. According to the Environmental Working Group, more than 8,500 new wells have been drilled in Weld the past nine years.
The gas wells in Boulder County are not all on private land. There are 115 gas wells on Boulder County Open Space, according to a spokesperson for the county. Private companies had the mineral rights to much of the Open Space land in east Boulder County when the county purchased it, said Ron Stewart, director of Boulder County Parks and Open Spaces.
“We spend a lot of time with (the oil companies) trying to get them to drill in the location that is most suitable for the agricultural operation that exists in the surrounding areas,” Stewart said.
When it comes to regulating the chemicals used during the fracking process, however, both county and private hands are tied. That’s because in 2005, the Bush Administration exempted the oil and gas industry’s hydraulic fracturing from the nation’s Safe Drinking Water Act. Currently, oil and gas companies do not have to disclose what chemicals they use in the fracking process. That’s a problem, said Amy Mall, senior policy analyst with the Natural Resource Defense Council.
“The (oil and gas) industry provides a big portion of Colorado’s economy, and we’re not saying that it should go away,” Mall said. “But we think it should be done more safely.”
In June, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), co-sponsored The Fracking Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, a bill that seeks to close the fracking loophole. Colorado Governor Bill Ritter in July came out publicly against the federal bill, saying fracking regulation should be left up to states. U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.), meanwhile, is in favor of federal oversight.
“Many new sources of energy, including natural gas, will play an important role in our nation’s transition to cleaner fuels, but we must make sure this isn’t at the expense of public health,” Polis said in a June press release. “The problem is not natural gas or even hydraulic fracturing itself. The problem is that dangerous chemicals are being injected into the earth, polluting our water sources, without any oversight whatsoever.”
Mike Chiropolos, lands use director for Western Resource Advocates, an environmental lobbying group based in Boulder, has studied the legislation surrounding oil and gas drilling for years.
“Citizens are right to be concerned about their water and their health,” said Chiropolos. “We need a federal requirement of full discloser of all constituents used in fracking processes.
“You buy a box of cereal, you know every ingredient on it. And this is something we could be ingesting. We need to know what’s in there.”
Lisa Langer stresses that the EnCana personnel who drilled and maintain the well on the Langer farm have been courteous and responsive to some of the Langers’ concerns — they’ve compensated the couple for hay loss due to the operation, and stopped drilling during sleeping hours during the initial phase of the operation. But Langer admits she’s concerned about what may end up in the well water the Langers use to irrigate their fields.
EnCana is paying for regular water tests.
“They hire a contractor to come out and do that quarterly, and supply us with the results,” Langer said.
Contact Mark Collins at BDCTheater@comcast.net.