National news
This page is reserved for national news articles that are relevant to mission of Larimer Alliance:
High Country News, Feb 5, 2020
The prodigious waste of freshwater is precipitating a water crisis in southeast New Mexico...
vice.com, Jan 22, 2020.
A PipelineWatch investigative piece on a new pipeline being built to serve the Permian Basin boom right through the environmentally sensitive Hill Country near Austin.
Rolling Stone, Jan 21, 2020
"Oil-and-gas wells produce nearly a trillion gallons of toxic waste a year. An investigation shows how it could be making workers sick and contaminating communities across America..."
EcoWatch, Dec 17, 2019
Yet another expose on how the oil and gas industry is an utter failure at self-regulating and at preventing accidents. This gas leak in Ohio in February 2018, "...released more methane in around 20 days than the oil and gas industries of France, Norway and the Netherlands do in a year"
koat.com, Albuquerque News station
Legislation has been proposed in New Mexico that proposes a four year moratorium on fracking; opinions differ (shocker....)
wksg.org, Nov 21, 2019
This Pennsylvania radio station report on a health conference in Pittsburgh that a prominent health research scientist Brain Schwartz states unequivocally that fracking is very bad for human health and the environment, and cast grave doubts on relying on natural gas as a "bridge fuel".
oilprice.com, Sept 25, 2019. This is certainly affecting us here in Larimer County.
Channel 7 News, KOSA, Midland, Tx., Oct 28, 2019. Another tragic story of preventable deaths, happening because of lack of safety standards in the fracking industry. Tragically, both parents of a young family perished -- and two children came perilously close to dying as well.
Desmog Blog, Oct 4, 2019. Not only is the blowout well being flared to prevent pure methane from spewing into the atmosphere, when the flare has gone out, the blowout shoots toxic waste water far above the ground, contaminating the countryside for miles around:
"'It would come back down, making a heavy fog, killing lots of trees, and getting on everything.' The resident said the fog persisted for four days and caused irritation and burning in the eyes and any open wounds when outside for more than a few minutes."
When asked about risk to nearby residents, the LDEQ (Louisiana Dept of Environmental Quality) replied: "All readings have been normal or at non-detectable levels for volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, and others. "
Further evidence that communities can not expect protection from state regulators: they are always on the side of industry, and do not put the health and welfare of residents first. This is why the Larimer Alliance is fighting to such welfare concerns elevated here in Colorado, as SB-181 intended.
Oklahoma News 4, Sept 26, 2019. Thousands of gallons of salty brine is bubbling up out of the ground in Oklahoma...can there be any doubt it is due to fracking waste water that was pumped down disposal wells?
National Geographic, Aug 15, 2019. This article about methane in the US and global atmosphere is relevant to Larimer County because we have an ozone problem -- which is certainly caused by all the drilling in Weld County.
It also seemed important to post the article to counteract Commissioner Connelly's remark during the August 20, 2019 meeting that ozone levels have been going down in recent years! We need to show him scientific evidence that our air quality has not been improving in recent years, but quite the opposite! The methane leaking from gas operations is a prime component of ground level ozone and, as the article states: "The 'massive' increase in methane emissions occurred at the same time as the use of fracking for shale gas took off in the U.S...."