How one private landowner's decision to sellout to the fracking industry legally violated the safety civil rights of over 150 homeowners

This is a civil rights problem. When a mineral and surface landowner leases their minerals to the fracking industry their decision may place the surrounding public at great danger from a myriad of health and safety risks created by the fracking industry's operations. 

One landowner's decision can place hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people at risk from the dangers of the fracking industry's toxic air, groundwater contamination, fugitive emissions, failed equipment, human error, and even a blowout which is the most dangerous to communities that are close by.  

A blowout is an accumulation of extreme gaseous and liquid pressure down in the ground that exceeds the prevention capacity at the top of the well-bore. Meaning: a pressurized explosion that can potentially travel miles upwards and outwards spewing toxic fracking chemicals and hydrocarbon based fluids for across the tops of homes and public areas.  If the blowout fluids ignite, that's a different story where mass devastation may occur. Remember Deep Water Horizon? You get the picture now.

So how does one man's decision to lease his minerals to the fracking industry legally violate homeowner's and public safety? 

Simple. The federal exemptions the fracking industry lavish in, and statewide preemptions, (which are mostly arbitrary and capricious) allow the frackers carte blanche to develop and operate heavy industry operations that release harmful byproducts a mere 350' (sometimes closer) from homes in Colorado while not obligated to abide by key federal mandates that every other business must adhere to, or face getting fined.   

It's a rogue industry that can legally poison people for profit.

The fracking industry had to find as many legal ways of getting rid of their harmful operational byproducts to increase their profitability and in doing so, they stripped the American public of their civil rights to safety.

 The fracking industry kills dead, billions of gallons of potable water annually with their 'proprietary' fracking chemicals. When the industry is done fracking they must dispose of their millions of gallons of toxic, carcinogenic, endocrine disruption chemical waste. Evaporation pits ring a bell? 

Fracking Industry Evaporation Pit - Near Rifle Colorado 2017

How easy is it for the industry to create a massive pond 1,000' long and three feet deep full of chemical laced fracking industry liquid waste to evaporate from their backyard air into your backyard airspace? Simple. It's the least expensive method to get rid of their nasty chemicals, and it's legal. The sun does all of the work for them.

Dilution is the solution to pollution. And it keeps their financial bottom line looking great. Your lungs become the filter for their poisons. And don't even think about proving it - you can't. It's all by design.

In 2011 after sifting through a few hundred thousand oil and gas documents, I realized that the fracking industry had known for at least a decade that it was going to return to the oilfields they had worked in the 1980's and 90's. 

I also realized that the industry had so many exemptions and state waivers that placed citizens in a very dangerous position. They could no longer protect their health, safety and welfare. It hit me - This is no longer an anti-fracking movement, it's a civil rights movement. The oil and gas industry had effectively stripped our rights to safety.

This time they were drilling deeper and telling people they will be using a new technology 'fracking' that will allow them to retrieve natural gas from the shale. The fracking industry even created false marketing by telling the American public that using and supporting this 'new fracking technology' we would ensure National Security and  that we'd have natural gas for one hundred years. What a load of shit that was. But people bought into it.

The industry knew they had numerous harmful byproduct chemicals from the drilling, fracking and extraction processes and had to find all the ways to get rid of them without having to pay a fee to do so.  It's all about making money. Who cares about human and environmental safety.

The late Dr. Colborn from The Endocrine Disruption Exchange www.TEDX.org discovered numerous harmful chemicals that are used in the drilling, fracking and re-completion stages of oil and gas extraction and studied them carefully to determine how they affected the human body, more specifically, the endocrine system. 

 

Endocrine Systems - wikipedia

The vast majority of the chemicals are endocrine disrupting chemicals. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) interfere with hormone signaling in a variety of ways depending on the chemical and the hormone system. 

According to TEDX: "The endocrine system is involved in every stage of life, including conception, development in the womb and from birth throughout early life, puberty, adulthood and senescence. It does this through control of the other vital systems that orchestrate metabolism, immune function, reproduction, intelligence and behavior, etc."  

How to humans ingest EDCs?  We can inhale these chemicals from a source nearby that release EDCs.  Possibly like a fracking well-pad.These types of chemicals are bio-accumulative and can build up in the body even at minute amounts over time and eventually mutate human DNA.

Are the fracking industry's exemption from the Clean Air Act which states a monster fracking pad, (like the one shown below) is exempt from being legally considered a 'major point source of pollution' and  therefore it is exempt from EPA rules and regulations?  Other oil and gas industry operational exemptions include: Resource Conservation Recovery Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, Clean Water Act, Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, National Environmental Policy Act. 

Is toxic air trespass for the oil and gas industry to vent, flare, or release harmful chemicals near communities and our airspace legal? Yes, in most cases especially due to federal exemptions and state waivers which allow the industry to basically operate without interference. The federal and state exemptions are assuredly a civil rights violation on a epic scale that has been legalized and nobody is talking about it. You can no longer protect your health, safety and welfare.

The fracking industry's operational exemption violate our civil rights to safety. We can no longer protect ourselves from the fracking empire. They can legally poison communities and there is nothing we can do under the law.

The act of one landowner to agree to lease mineral and surface rights also indemnifies the oil and gas operator.

It is this sole decision of greed to lease private  mineral rights to the oil and gas industry that place hundreds if not thousands of people in direct harm from the fracking industry's operations, toxic byproduct exemptions, and the industry's operations errors.  Lest we forget, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's Director, Matt Lepore authorized your civil right violations as well. Doc Link

If you are a land/mineral owner, please do not subject the community to a rogue industry that can poison you for profit. It is unjust and uncivil.

We are smarter than a fossil fuel. We must ban toxic energy like fracking and create healthy energy that does not violate our civil rights to safety. Fracking is anti-progress towards healthy energy and democracy. 

Frederick/Firestone Colorado

Extraction Oil & Gas, LLC (Extraction) designed the Johnson Trust 13-I Production Facility to be a safe distance from neighboring houses and buildings, clear of the 100 year flood plain and located efficiently for regular maintenance and access. Extraction agreed upon an oil and gas operations area per the landowner/ operator Surface Use Agreement pertaining to these horizontal wells. 

Where possible, consolidation of existing facilities has been attempted to keep the disturbed area to a minimum. Extraction has reviewed the surrounding areas to identify any technical and economical options outside of buffer zones. 

As a result of Operator's review of potential locations outside Buffer Zone, the operator has determined that this is the best possible location for the facilities given the surface owner's preference, property boundaries, utility easements and current COGCC setbacks

Link to official COGCC 'Application to Permit to Drill' document 

 http://cogcc.state.co.us/weblink/DownloadDocument1.aspx?DocumentId=3704541

Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) footage of chemicals being released from well-pad equipment. FLIR makes the invisible, visible and can detect hydrocarbon gases where you can't normally see them with the naked eye.  If you can smell it, it must exist right? Link --Doc# 443649

Illustrates the close proximity of occupied housing to the fracking well-pad and operations.  Conducting noise level - decibel testing due to numerous public complaints.

Glare on houses to the North at nighttime from operation lights. Doc# 674103885  Remember, it is supposed to be night time.

Jonson Trust 13-I Pad Site Plan



--//--

Fractivist, Shane Davis and Honor The Earth's, Winona LaDuke Team up for Anti-Fracking Speaking Tour in Michigan

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April 6, 2015

Contact: LuAnne Kozma, Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan

(231) 944-8750 luanne@letsbanfracking.org

Winona LaDuke and Shane Davis to speak on fracking and pipelines at “Honor the Earth” events in Detroit and Bloomfield Hills

Charlevoix, Michigan – Internationally known activists and environmentalists Winona LaDuke, of Honor the Earth and Shane Davis, who founded the blog www.fractivist.org, will speak about fracking and pipelines at two events in Bloomfield Hills and Detroit. On April 13 at Birmingham Unitarian Church and on April 14 at Marygrove College, the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan and seven other sponsors are hosting “Honor the Earth.”

Winona LaDuke-- Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, candidate and writer, known for her work on tribal land claims and preservation, and sustainable development with the non profit organization Honor the Earth (honorearth.org), —and Shane Davis—biologist, data-miner, activist,

researcher, and founder of Fractivist.org, an investigative blog that exposes the harm to the environment by government and the oil and gas industry, empowering the nationwide anti-fracking movement—are also part of the Tar Sands Resistance Tour sponsored by 350.org and Honor the Earth, with events here and in other Midwest states. While in Michigan, Shane and Winona are presenting on these two special nights in support of the Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan’s efforts to protect the Earth and ban fracking and frack wastes in Michigan.

 

Event details

April 13, 7-9:30 PM

Birmingham Unitarian Church, 38651 Woodward, Bloomfield Hills 48304

Info: 248-390-3198

April 14, 3 to 5 PM

Marygrove College, Liberal Arts Theatre

8425 McNichols, Detroit 48221

Info: (313) 717-6151

The complete list of sponsors:

American Indian Health and Family Services

Birmingham Unitarian Church

Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan

Great Lakes Bioneers Detroit

IHM Justice, Peace and Sustainability Office

Marygrove College

Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation

Zero Waste Detroit

The Committee to Ban Fracking in Michigan is a ballot question committee conducting a ballot initiative that collected over 70,000 signatures in 2013 for a statewide ban on fracking and frack wastes. The group is working on placing a ballot proposal on the next statewide ballot in 2016. The Committee’s website is: www.letsbanfracking.org

# # #

Tell Congressman Jared Polis that he Cannot Betray 300,000 Signatures Supporting Clean Air and Pure Water in Colorado

SIGN PETITION HERE

Dear Representative Polis:

We watched in horror as you blatantly hijacked Colorado’s democratic process, by throwing out nearly 300,000 signatures for statewide initiatives 88 and 89 that you yourself said were “sensible regulations on fracking.” You represent a district where five communities passed local initiatives that voted “yes” to moratoria and bans on fracking, yet you failed to represent those constituents, your constituents.

In the Colorado constitution, it states that all political power is vested in the people. Though our political process has largely been usurped by money and party rule, you the politicians forget that “We the people” are the party. You work for us and we have spoken. What you and the Democratic Party have done in this state is hijack our democratic process.

In less than six week’s time, we made it clear that we expect our right to “clean air, pure water and natural and scenic values” to be represented in the Colorado Constitution. And we expect that our local governments are there to protect us. By withdrawing these initiatives, you also withdrew the voice of Coloradans. 

You have said, in essence, that 'we the people' should not have the right to protect our communities from fracking. You, left us naked and unarmed to protect ourselves from what, by default, are non-sensible regulations which violate rights to safety. In Colorado we have 52,000 active oil and gas wells, 74,000 abandoned wells, 13 inspectors, 500 spills a year. That’s two a day now, Jared.

Your actions prove that we not only have an environmental crisis, but also a democracy crisis. We are not bargaining chips in some sort of game of Chicken with the Democratic Party and Governor Hickenlooper. We demand that you carry out the intent of the people who signed these initiatives in good faith. We demand you allow us to submit them if you will not. The democratic process is not yours to steal. It, like Colorado’s environment, is the common property of all Coloradans.

                                                                                                 

Protecting the health and welfare of Coloradans from the harms of the fracking industry should never be a poker game. These are real people’s lives at stake.

 .................................................//END//..............................................

JARED POLIS WILL BE HOLDING A TOWN HALL MEETING

Tuesday, August 5th

5:30-6:30

4800 Baseline Road (Meadows on the Parkway Shopping Center)

Boulder, CO 80303

GRASSROOTS PRESS CONFERENCE WILL BE AT 4:00 PM ON THE SIDEWALK OF THE MEADOWS BRANCH PUBLIC LIBRARY. BRING YOUR SIGNS AND YOUR VOICE!

• "This deal does nothing for the Broomfield residents who voted last November to get more information on the health and property impacts of fracking.  It will not protect us.  We are severely disappointed that politics are being played with families and our lives,” said Laura Fronckiewicz with Our Broomfield. 

• “This ‘compromise’ will do nothing to address the fact that the oil and gas industry, in league with Governor Hickenlooper and the State of Colorado, continues to sue communities for voting to protect themselves from fracking. Local communities should not be pre-empted when it comes to protecting our health, safety and property from the dangers that flow from fracking, an extreme industrial activity,” said Kaye Fissinger, President of Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont.  "The people of Longmont and all Coloradans have constitutional rights that protect their health and welfare.  It is past time when all branches of government need to honor those rights."

• "We are outraged to see politicians once again prioritizing political expediency over the health and well being of Coloradans. The proposed compromise represents a failure on the part of both Polis and Hickenlooper to protect Coloradans from the dangers of fracking,” said Russell Mendell of Frack Free Colorado. “This is further evidence that real progress cannot come from the top down, and true change will continue to come from citizen, grassroots organizing.  There are hundreds of thousands of Coloradans who have been involved with local community efforts to protect their communities from fracking, who feel betrayed by this back room deal making. This deal only strengthens our resolve to work in our communities for real citizen initiatives that will ensure a safe and healthy future for all Coloradans.  It’s time for Coloradans to stand up take back our democratic rights.”

• "The Mother's Project wholeheartedly opposes Rep Jared Polis' decision to withdraw the voices of Colorado communities. Polis' actions are the cancer of our failed Democratic system and it must be stopped immediately." Jodee Brekke

SIGN PETITION HERE

• "You need a civics lesson Jared. It appears that your power, position and profits have given you the illusion that you are separate and apart from the rest of us. So let us be the ones to educate you on the rights of the people that the Colorado State Constitution guarantees will be upheld and defended by our government. " Mary Smith

Article II, the Bill of Rights, begins, "In order to assert our rights, acknowledge our duties, and proclaim the principles upon which our government is founded, we declare:

Section 1. Vestment of political power. All political power is vested in and derived from the people; all government, of right, originates from the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.

Section 2. People may alter or abolish form of government � proviso. The people of this state have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves, as a free, sovereign and independent state; and to alter and abolish their constitution and form of government whenever they may deem it necessary to their safety and happiness, provided, such change be not repugnant to the constitution of the United States.

Section 3. Inalienable rights. All persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; of acquiring, possessing and protecting property; and of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

We intend to codify these rights, once again, in our Boulder County Home Rule Charter and continually assert them to insure that you and yours understand that "we the people" are the authority, that government is an extension of our will and exists for the good of the whole, and that, as our elected representative, you work for us." 

National Response Center and Four other Agencies Contacted for Massive Fracking Industry Oil Spill in National Heritage River in Colorado. UPDATE

On June 20th 2014 Colorado's Cache La Poudre River, (sometimes called the Poudre River or the Poudre), was reportedly contaminated by more than 7,500 gallons of crude oil, produced waters, and other fracking industry chemicals from a well-pad that had been impacted by excessive snow-melt runoff.

Agencies involved: 

Date Agency/Party Contact Phone Response
6/20/2014 NRC - Verbally communicated spill
6/20/2014 COGCC Rick Allison - Verbally communicated spill
6/20/2014 CDPHE - Verbally Communicated spill
6/20/2014 Noble Land Dept Landowner -
6/20/2014 Weld Co - Left message detailing spill

The Poudre’s  headwaters are in the Front Range in Larimer County, in the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park. The river descends eastward in the mountains through the Roosevelt National Forest in Poudre Canyon. It emerges from the foothills north of the city of Fort Collins. It flows eastward across the plains, passing north of the city of Greeley, and flows into the South Platte River approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Greeley^{. [1]}

The Cache La Poudre river corridor is the only Colorado river that boasts a naturally self-sustaining wild trout population, and is listed as a National Heritage Area  that includes the 100-year flood plain of the river from its emergence from the mountains to its confluence with the South Platte River.^[2]

According to a ‘form 19/spill incident report’ document obtained from the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s, (COGCC) the following was officially reported: ‘On May 24, 2014, in anticipation of potential flooding due to heavy precipiation and snow melt, Noble Energy shut in oil and gas wells State M36-3, M36-5,6-36,7-36, and 8-36. Flooding and field conditions impeded safe access to the wells until June 20, 2014. Immediately upon access to the tank battery unit associated with the above mentioned oil and gas wells, evidence of an unintentional release resulting from flood-releated impacts was observed. Available information indicates a loss of 173 BBLS of condensate. The cause of the unintentional release is believed to be a break in the produced water valve on the back of the condensate storage tank. Noble called a vacuum truck to the location to vacuum up pooling water as well as any remaining fluids in both the affected and nonaffected storage tank. A third party environmental emergency response consultant was called immediatley following the discovery of the unintentional release to assess the location and deploy clean up measures.’

Thanks to EcoFlight's Bruce Gorden and team member; Dom Smith, fractivist team members: Lee Buchsbaum, Chelsea Richer and I were able to film, photograph and narrate the affected area and capture on-the-ground operations by Noble Energy and the State. Video below by EcoFlight.

click images to enlarge

Investigative questions:

1.) Why was this well-pad 'not' listed as impacted from last years flood when all of the other well-pads in the area were?

2.) The industry and the State of Colorado have listed this incident as being caused by increased temperatures and heavy snow-melt runoff. Are they admitting our climate has changed?

3.) This well-pad documentation  indicates that the damaged condensate tanks 'were, in-fact' anchored down, using approved COGCC methods. This incident appears to illustrate that the anchors that fasten the tanks down are inadequate to prevent adverse impacts and the COGCC should immediately respond to their inadequate regulatory protocols for anchoring.

4.) Should this well-pad should be immediately plugged and abandoned? Yes, all fracking industry well-pads should be prohibited in a flood plain. Period.

5.) Will Noble Energy be fined for this environmental catastrophe?  Me thinks not...

Stay tuned for ongoing updates on this environmental catastrophe. We have very unique information we will be releasing shortly.


Please help us continue our work by donating today!

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Thank you

Shane Davis
Chelsea Richer 
Lee Buchsbaum

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^{[1] wikipedia}

_{[2] National Park Service}