For an Energy Boomtown in Colorado, Heady Days Bring Growth and Anxiety
The net result, many say, is a loss of a sense of community. But there is also a deep anxiety about the area's ability to endure another seemingly inevitable bust cycle. When Exxon and other oil companies pulled out 26 years ago, Rifle was devastated. Home values dropped by more than half. Bankruptcy rates doubled. Hundreds of workers left town with their families, and those who stayed lost much of their savings, got by on part-time jobs, and pawned possessions.
Environmental and public health concerns linger as well, although drilling has become cleaner and more sophisticated. In September, against the objections of conservation groups and many state leaders, the Interior Department moved to open up the Roan Plateau, a scenic area just north of Rifle that is home to falcons, mountain lions, elk, and deer, to natural gas drilling, issuing leases for about 55,000 acres. That same month, researchers at the University of Colorado released a report warning of an "acute problem with toxic emissions" from natural gas drilling, citing air quality tests performed at 14 sites in the region around Rifle. In particular, they noted high levels of benzene, an organic compound released by drilling that has been associated with leukemia. County officials are now calling for further testing.
To many residents, this is literally a backyard issue. Though much of the drilling is taking place 20 to 30 miles away in the wilderness, a significant number of wells have been drilled within earshot of town, or even closer. Several years ago, Bob Hooker, like many locals, sold the mineral rights for his land to a natural gas company, thinking he was making a good business deal. Now, however, he can see a drilling rig when he looks out his windows and can sometimes smell methane-tinged air drifting down over his property. "We don't like it," says Hooker, 70, who has lived in Rifle for 20 years. "We'd rather them return the land."
New campus. A spate of recent projects, however, suggests that oil companies don't plan to leave anytime soon. Up in the shrub land, about 2 miles from downtown, two of the region's biggest energy players, EnCana and Williams, have given $3 million and $1 million, respectively, to help open a new campus of Colorado Mountain College, with which they've developed a program to train operators of natural gas plants. "They want people who are qualified and knowledgeable about the oil and gas industries, who have work ethics, and who come in clean and sober," says Pam Arsenault, until recently CEO of the new campus, noting that some companies struggle with workers who fail drug tests. The college could also help provide training for potential oil shale operations.
In fact, although natural gas has lately gotten the most attention, "oil shale is the 800-pound gorilla" in the distance, Mayor Lambert says. This summer, as congressional Republicans pushed to expand offshore oil drilling, similar calls were being made to open up Colorado's oil shale deposits. The prospect of an oil shale revival rests on the painstaking progress of several corporate players. Three companies—Shell, Chevron, and American Shale Oil—are working to do what so many other companies failed to do in the 1970s: develop technology to allow them to profitably tap into the equivalent of up to 800 billion barrels of oil trapped underground in the region.
Compared to natural gas drilling, oil shale development is more controversial. It is a much dirtier fossil fuel, and traditional extraction methods guzzle water. At the moment, the companies with federal approval to do oil shale research in the region say they're likely several years away from commercial production. But if the research pans out, the effect would likely be to magnify Rifle's already torrid growth—a boom-boom, rather than boom-bust.
Reader Comments
drilling on public land
One of many things to consider, in addition to the impact on wildlife, water & air quality, the beauty of our dwindling natural scene, our continuing need for energy: anyone living adjacent to national forests or BLM land that drilling companies have leased, should brace themselves for what's coming under "drill baby drill" policies. Check the laws--what share of taxes resulting from drillers' profits will your impacted local infrastructure reap--providing oil/gas is found? By the time federal,state, and county take their cut, what will be left to repair the roads that go past your property once those big trucks finish rumbling to the drilling sites that were chosen, not deep in the woods and far away from human habitat, but as close as possible to the very culverts, bridges, and roads that lead to the wilderness that borders your property? What will become of all those beautiful, unobstructed views you thought were protected when you bought your property? While you're checking into the local legalities, it might be a good thing to see if you own your own mineral rights. If not, you may find a drilling rig right on your own north forty...and not have much of a say about it, the oil/gas that's extracted right under your nose, or the money someone else is making from below the surface of the ground you live on!
Writing from a small Colorado town not far from national forest land currently leased for wildcat (exploratory) gas drilling/fracking projected to begin this spring...
Judith Harrington
article
well boys and girls this article is about 2 years to late they , the gas industry , are pulling about 40 % of the rigs out so says the rocky mt news ... gas prices are low now about 6.25 per unit, wholesale . talk of layin down the rigs . my understanding is that means close the valve on existing well s til the price gos up... there are more places to rent and there is some ...not to much unemploymnet .. this article must have been written 6 months ago and just got published.
Those Against It?
Those against the Domestic Energy Industry Boom are either too rich to care and want to pretend that every Rancher, Hunter and Outdoorsman, who have been here taking care of the environment for much longer than they have, don't give a darn about the environment! Only those idealist (usually City Slickers) who believe the "all the little forest animals, dance around together and sing love songs between them (in English no less)" just like in the Bambi Movie, OR those who are politically motivated to disenguously take advantage of joining those who fight against the Hated America, i.e. to blame all evil in the World on the present Administration, in order to gain control again for their own selfish reasons) are against developing our Domestic Energy Industry. A "Scorched Earth Policy" similar to Juvenile Delinquents who's motto is, "If you can't steal, wreck it".
If we don't intelligently develop our own Domestic Energy Sources to get off of sending Billions of American Dollars and Jobs overseas, then all the US Citizen-American Haters will soon find out that life under a Chinese Dictatorship might become inevitable and not be all that good afterall. "You never really know what you've got, until it is gone"!
Oh, I left out one sincere group: "Those who want to believe, at all costs, that the old way is the only good way".
They need to use the same entreprenuerial spirit that put them in their past positions as the "financial overlords" in these small communities to begin with and quit fighting Progress. Learn to live with it and embrace it for the benefit of future generations.
And last but not least, until one truly investigates the overwhelming concensus of the "World-Wide Scientific Community" who have labeled the theory of "Human Caused Global Warming" as "the biggest hoax every perpetrated on Mankind", can one start thinking intelligently, rather than letting their "Autonomic Nervous System (Unreasoned Emotion) Fight/Flight Syndrome" guide their decisions.
The "Scorched Earth Strategies" used by the opposing Party have worked and now they have all the power. But it will be a "Cold Day in Hell" before I will support the same thuggish mentality against our duly elected American President "Barack Obama" despite of what his Party did to our last duly elected American President.
Its time for cooler and more thoughtful Heads to prevail or we will only prolong our difficulties.
Steve Bigelow
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