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



--//--

Theo Colborn, an environmental health analyst who was best known for her studies on the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals, died on December 14, 2014. Theo was featured in the films "Dear Governor Hickenlooper" (Mountainfilm 2014) and "Bag It" (Mountainfilm 2010).  Fractivist Shane Davis worked closely with Colborn during recent  years and wrote this letter in her memory.

Dear Theo,

It’s with many tears that I write these words to you about how you and your work changed the course of my life. I will always honor our times together, discussing new theories over tea—you sitting in your chair with your leg propped over the side laughing about silly things or discussing the more serious topics of endocrine disruption, someone’s new scientific study and, of course, the fracking industry and its systemic effects on environmental and human health through the misuse of chemicals.

 When we met years ago, you put me through a rigorous test to ensure I was capable, which allowed me to demonstrate that I could protect and assist you and your work for the greatest positive social change. Somehow I passed that test and am forever grateful just for the opportunity—let alone the years we shared afterward working together.

Ever since I was a young boy, Carl Sagan’s research and humanitarian brilliance tucked me into bed at night via Cosmos. Although I never met Carl, he was my most influential mentor until I met you. You both shared the tenacity of truth, a way of exploring facts without personal bias and without giving up on the journey. You imparted a deep sense of faculty in uncovering the truth and using it to protect our environment and those who are naturally determined to thrive in it.

As one of many leaders in the anti-fracking-turned-civil-rights movement, your scientific studies were at the tip of every spear used by grassroots organizations to arm themselves with the best science available regarding air chemistry near fracking industry operations.

I cited your research at hundreds of public presentations nationwide and recall that when I gave lectures on fracking, you would send me a note that read “Knock their socks off, Shane…”

I enjoyed every bit of work I did with you, Theo, and am honored to have helped you in any small way that I could. But far more importantly, I learned that “deep inside everyone, there is something bigger and stronger than we are aware of at this time that cannot be suppressed by man-made chemicals—something that will prompt some very exceptional leadership to step forward with the courage to turn off corporate control of the government and the world and take back for society what it needs to thrive.”

As Carl Sagan said, “We are all made of star stuff.” But you, Theo, are made of the finest star stuff the universe has ever created—you are a universal treasure.

I will always see you in the stars.

—Shane Davis

SOURCE: MountainFilm.org

Shane Davis is a data-miner, activist, biologist and the founder of Fractivist.org, an anti-fracking investigative organization. His research has empowered dozens of grassroots organizations and public debates nationwide. He was featured in the collaborative film Dear Governor Hickenlooper (Mountainfilm 2014).

TAGGED DEAR GOVERNOR HICKENLOOPERBAG IT THEO COLBORNSHANE DAVIS

GROUNDBREAKING - Air Pollution and Natural Gas Operations Air Study Report

An Exploratory Study of Air Quality near Natural Gas Operations

This paper was peer-reviewed and accepted for publication byHuman and Ecological Risk Assessment: An International Journal (November 9, 2012).


Download the article (PDF)
Findings and Implications (PDF)
Health Effects References (PDF)


Abstract 

 This exploratory study was designed to assess air quality in a rural western Colorado area where residences and gas wells co-exist. Sampling was conducted before, during, and after drilling and hydraulic fracturing of a new natural gas well pad. Weekly air sampling for 1 year revealed that the number of non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) and their concentrations were highest during the initial drilling phase and did not increase during hydraulic fracturing in this closed-loop system. Methylene chloride, a toxic solvent not reported in products used in drilling or hydraulic fracturing, was detected 73% of the time; several times in high concentrations. A literature search of the health effects of the NMHCs revealed that many had multiple health effects, including 30 that affect the endocrine system, which is susceptible to chemical impacts at very low concentrations, far less than government safety standards. Selected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were at concentrations greater than those at which prenatally exposed children in urban studies had lower developmental and IQ scores. The human and environmental health impacts of the NMHCs, which are ozone precursors, should be examined further given that the natural gas industry is now operating in close proximity to human residences and public lands.

Citation

Colborn T, Schultz K, Herrick L, and Kwiatkowski C. 2012 (in press). An exploratory study of air quality near natural gas operations. Hum Ecol Risk Assess.

Natural Gas: The Rest of the Story

In March, 2012, Theo Colborn spoke to an audience in western Colorado on the hazards posed to human and environmental health by air pollution from natural gas operations.

Click here to view this 24 minute video