For an Energy Boomtown in Colorado, Heady Days Bring Growth and Anxiety

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