Dear Editor,\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019m writing from Erie, Colorado, where we have been grappling with how much of our land will get fracked under via the Draco project. It looks like around 1,400 homes will now *not* be drilled under, thanks to the recent citizen referendum petition. That\u2019s a relief.\n<\/p>\n
I have marveled, when we as a town were arguing for and against a deal to sell our town\u2019s mineral rights to SM Energy, that so many people didn\u2019t even know about the proposed deal \u2014 suggesting that the Town Council wasn\u2019t making sure that most people knew. Indeed, our mayor has seemed eager to survey residents about all manner of things, but not whether we want fracking going on under our homes.\n<\/p>\n
He and others said that Draco will happen, drilling will happen, and thereby suggested that there was nothing to be done about it. But he and the council never tried to stop or limit it. Then the citizen referendum happened, and now Draco is redesigning its plan, sparing more than 1,000 homes. It looks like Draco wasn\u2019t necessarily a fully done deal.\n<\/p>\n
Another thing that has amazed me in this process is that our mayor and the council-people who tend to vote in lockstep with him kept arguing that the deal with SM Energy was just about money-or-no-money. Do we want to get many millions \u2014 or nothing? Well, much of the millions was speculative. We would get much of it only after SM Energy got much more.\n<\/p>\n
To me, the deal was always a money-or-health-and-safety deal. There was plenty of value in scrapping the deal, from likely increased health and safety.\n<\/p>\n
Here are some exercises for my fellow Erie residents (or anyone) to try:\n<\/p>\n
Google \u201cSM Energy\u201d and \u201cviolations\u201d. You\u2019ll see that SM Energy has 125 environment-related offenses. Leaking and accidents do occur. Its total fines since 2000 for companies currently owned? A mere $11.4 million. A drop in its bucket. There are several ongoing leaks in Erie right now, not yet fixed. Wells that need to be plugged and abandoned. This is not a company we should be doing business with. If they want our business, why not clean up what they need to clean up, and then come to us? Instead, they said they\u2019ll do some cleanup only if we sell our mineral rights.
\nGoogle \u201cOklahoma fracking health\u201d or \u201cis fracking safe?\u201d or \u201coil and gas leukemia\u201d \u2014 and you\u2019ll see some very concerning information. Google \u201cfracking\u201d and \u201cearthquakes\u201d or \u201cfracking\u201d and \u201chome values\u201d) Yikes. And Erie already has LOTS of mines underground, plus previous fracking efforts. Why add to this? That seems risky.<\/p>\n
It seems to me that Erie (and neighboring towns) would do well to work to minimize fracking and other oil & gas activities in our midst. It\u2019s time for a mindset change. Instead of looking to oil and gas for money, let\u2019s avoid it \u2014 for our health and safety.\n<\/p>\n
I also encourage Erie folks to take the upcoming election of town council members seriously. Look into the candidates \u2014 some have long been against oil and gas operations. Vote \u2014 and vote accordingly.\n<\/p>\n
Selena Maranjian\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Editor, I\u2019m writing from Erie, Colorado, where we have been grappling with how much of our land…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[15887,4877,6836,6837,83958,1676,6833,6838,32609,1681,136,138,137,1677,8423,6835,976],"class_list":["post-283430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-action","tag-arts","tag-boulder","tag-business-directory","tag-calling","tag-colorado","tag-denver","tag-east-county","tag-editor","tag-entertainment","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-front-range","tag-letter","tag-north-metro","tag-restaurant"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}