Question on Colorado prop 112 and how it might affect federal (public) lands

[elkduds]

My company's headquarters is in Houston, but we've operated in Colorado, safely, for 30+years. While technically the money can be called big oil out of state money, I think thats a little misleading.

Colorado has some of the most stringent environmental controls and regulations on oil and gas development in the world. Our current setbacks are 500' and 1000' depending on the structure, how is that not adequate?

As far as the drugs/crime comment goes, I can't hear myself think over my own laughter, care to share with me how oil and gas brings high drugs and crime?

See who's spending the most on Colorado's oil-well setback ballot fight | 9news.com
The gas/oil PAC alone reported raising $33 million for this campaign.

In Colorado, a Bitter Battle Over Oil, Gas and the Environment Comes to a Head - The New York Times
How well do Texans like it when national/int'l PAC $ tries to interfere w your state elections? Nobody is campaigning to tell you how the industry should operate in your state, why bother? You already know the industry spent many millions opposing every one of the regulations CO has. Hilarious how they try to make it sound like they supported any of those regs. As if there was adequate monitoring or enforcement of those industry regs. Not even close.

Larger setbacks preserve property values, for obvious reasons. They move toxic, loud and dangerous 24/7 industrial operations farther away from health care, schools, residences. CO values healthy residents more than temporary, destructive industry, so we get to choose laws that reflect those values.

SHALE@10: How the boom billionaires made their mark on state politics -- Monday, August 13, 2018 -- www.eenews.net
How drilling billionaires bought, paid for and took over the politics of TX, PA, ND, etc. CO has many more valuable (to us) resources than those underground. Extractive industries only yield to environmental concerns when they are forced to by laws. Interesting that nobody commented about the taxpayer subsidy to the industry from discounted lease rates on public lands. In effect that means we are all paying more for oil and gas, than the price @ the pump and on utility bills, because the industry/gov't partnership does not want us to know.

Crime/social problems: No Google deep inna heart o Texas? Or just denial?
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/01/nuuca-bakken-oil-boom-sexual-violence/
Since the boom hit, a number of researchers and journalists have examined the crime that came with it. In their study “Drilling Down: An Examination of the Boom-Crime Relationship in Resource-Based Boom Counties,” researchers at the University of Regina and the University of North Dakota describe some of the commonalities boom towns share. An oil boom can mean a flood of young men with huge salaries and no connection to the community. Many live in sprawling, temporary housing known as man camps. The men’s deep pockets, boredom, exhausting work hours, and lack of romantic partners make them prime customers for traffickers of sex and drugs. Traffic deaths often rise, and so do reports of domestic violence.
“It’s a slam dunk that crime goes up whenever there’s a boom town, pretty much no matter where it happens throughout North America,” said Rick Rudell, one of the authors of the “Drilling Down” study. “You get this influx of young people, primarily male, into small rural communities and they just disrupt everything.”
By 2011, there were more than 1.6 single young men for every single young woman in the Bakken region counties most affected by the oil boom. The “Drilling Down” study showed that violent crime in boom counties rose 18.5 percent between 2006 and 2012, while decreasing 25.6 percent in counties that had no oil or gas production. The biggest city in the area, Williston, saw calls to police increase from 4,163 in 2006 to 15,954 in 2011. Narcotics investigations skyrocketed, as did drug arrests.
Oil and gas infrastructure in the Bakken has included domestic violence shelters and a new FBI office. Two new special prosecutors were appointed to handle crimes against women, and North Dakota launched a human trafficking task force. Law enforcement officers celebrated the groundbreaking of a new jail.

I was here 5 years when 5Miles was born. I watched a gas boom make Collbran/Molina nearly unliveable when I lived in Mesa County. Roads failed, ERs and jails overfilled, meth skyrocketed. Schools, DHS, law enforcement could not keep up. I had drill rigs visible and hearable all day and night from my rural acreage 10 miles west of Whitewater. There was fracking under my spring, and under the Grand Junction city water supply reservoirs near my home. Roads were blocked for many months @ a time by pipeline construction. I eventually moved on because of it, and the driller families I rented it to were the scum of the earth: Drugs, theft, hiding kids from DHS in multiple states, keeping livestock in the house, animal cruelty, destroying property, evictions, yada yada. Anyone who has lived in a boomtown knows the score.

 

[ElkElkGoose]

My company's headquarters is in Houston, but we've operated in Colorado, safely, for 30+years. While technically the money can be called big oil out of state money, I think thats a little misleading.

Colorado has some of the most stringent environmental controls and regulations on oil and gas development in the world. Our current setbacks are 500' and 1000' depending on the structure, how is that not adequate?

As far as the drugs/crime comment goes, I can't hear myself think over my own laughter, care to share with me how oil and gas brings high drugs and crime?

See who's spending the most on Colorado's oil-well setback ballot fight | 9news.com
The gas/oil PAC alone reported raising $33 million for this campaign.

In Colorado, a Bitter Battle Over Oil, Gas and the Environment Comes to a Head - The New York Times
How well do Texans like it when national/int'l PAC $ tries to interfere w your state elections? Nobody is campaigning to tell you how the industry should operate in your state, why bother? You already know the industry spent many millions opposing every one of the regulations CO has. Hilarious how they try to make it sound like they supported any of those regs. As if there was adequate monitoring or enforcement of those industry regs. Not even close.

Larger setbacks preserve property values, for obvious reasons. They move toxic, loud and dangerous 24/7 industrial operations farther away from health care, schools, residences. CO values healthy residents more than temporary, destructive industry, so we get to choose laws that reflect those values.

SHALE@10: How the boom billionaires made their mark on state politics -- Monday, August 13, 2018 -- www.eenews.net
How drilling billionaires bought, paid for and took over the politics of TX, PA, ND, etc. CO has many more valuable (to us) resources than those underground. Extractive industries only yield to environmental concerns when they are forced to by laws. Interesting that nobody commented about the taxpayer subsidy to the industry from discounted lease rates on public lands. In effect that means we are all paying more for oil and gas, than the price @ the pump and on utility bills, because the industry/gov't partnership does not want us to know.

Crime/social problems: No Google deep inna heart o Texas? Or just denial?
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/01/nuuca-bakken-oil-boom-sexual-violence/
Since the boom hit, a number of researchers and journalists have examined the crime that came with it. In their study “Drilling Down: An Examination of the Boom-Crime Relationship in Resource-Based Boom Counties,” researchers at the University of Regina and the University of North Dakota describe some of the commonalities boom towns share. An oil boom can mean a flood of young men with huge salaries and no connection to the community. Many live in sprawling, temporary housing known as man camps. The men’s deep pockets, boredom, exhausting work hours, and lack of romantic partners make them prime customers for traffickers of sex and drugs. Traffic deaths often rise, and so do reports of domestic violence.
“It’s a slam dunk that crime goes up whenever there’s a boom town, pretty much no matter where it happens throughout North America,” said Rick Rudell, one of the authors of the “Drilling Down” study. “You get this influx of young people, primarily male, into small rural communities and they just disrupt everything.”
By 2011, there were more than 1.6 single young men for every single young woman in the Bakken region counties most affected by the oil boom. The “Drilling Down” study showed that violent crime in boom counties rose 18.5 percent between 2006 and 2012, while decreasing 25.6 percent in counties that had no oil or gas production. The biggest city in the area, Williston, saw calls to police increase from 4,163 in 2006 to 15,954 in 2011. Narcotics investigations skyrocketed, as did drug arrests.
Oil and gas infrastructure in the Bakken has included domestic violence shelters and a new FBI office. Two new special prosecutors were appointed to handle crimes against women, and North Dakota launched a human trafficking task force. Law enforcement officers celebrated the groundbreaking of a new jail.

I was here 5 years when 5Miles was born. I watched a gas boom make Collbran/Molina nearly unliveable when I lived in Mesa County. Roads failed, ERs and jails overfilled, meth skyrocketed. Schools, DHS, law enforcement could not keep up. I had drill rigs visible and hearable all day and night from my rural acreage 10 miles west of Whitewater. There was fracking under my spring, and under the Grand Junction city water supply reservoirs near my home. Roads were blocked for many months @ a time by pipeline construction. I eventually moved on because of it, and the driller families I rented it to were the scum of the earth: Drugs, theft, hiding kids from DHS in multiple states, keeping livestock in the house, animal cruelty, destroying property, evictions, yada yada. Anyone who has lived in a boomtown knows the score.

And there it is, you lived in an area that happened to have swift change occur due to an economic boom and all the negative changes that occur when a location explodes in population. Kind of like Denver right now with its current IT boom? I'm pretty sure Ive seen many threads of people pissed about the changes brought on by it.

So you now hold a grudge decades later with people that mostly weren't even alive and want an entire industry to evaporate as a result. Makes sense.

 

[elkduds]

And there it is, you lived in an area that happened to have swift change occur due to an economic boom and all the negative changes that occur when a location explodes in population. Kind of like Denver right now with its current IT boom?
So you now hold a grudge decades later with people that mostly weren't even alive and want an entire industry to evaporate as a result. Makes sense.

You ignored all the facts in limping to your halfhearted emotional argument, Junior. I was writing about 2004-10. Are you seriously comparing the environmental impacts of an IT boom to an extractive boom? I think the gas/oil industry has its place: Texas, possibly ND. They seem to enjoy it, and give the industry everything it asks for. Pardon us CO voters who don't, and won't.
Its place is not next to Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon, not the upper Muddy/Grand Mesa, not
Bear's Ears. Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears Monument, Emails Show - The New York Times.

 

[ElkElkGoose]

I may be "Junior" to you but Im not conversing with someone who has to result to name calling for pointing the facts of your behavior.

I leave you with this, you will never expand your understanding of anything by only searching out opinions that validate your own.

 

[Hoot]

Again, Colorado is not the Bakken or Texas, or the sage brush sea of Wyoming. Have you ever been to the Bakken? ANY economic boom to a small town in the armpit of a state and there will be growing pains. There was literally NO infrastructure in the bakken, no housing, workers were having to live in man camps. They weren't ever going to attract a top of class workforce there, and of course the scourge of our society will flock to those places to take advantage.

Show me, other than anecdotal, where that has occurred as a direct result of oil and gas IN COLORADO?

You're obviously set in your delusions, but I challenge you to come on up to weld county and see how we ACTUALLY do things up here, talk to landowners with activity on their land, learn about the safety precautions we take (our TRIR is less than the accounting industry, meaning you have a higher chance of injury or OSHA recordable incident as a CPA than you do working for my company.) There are places you can responsibly develop oil and gas without an increased environmental impact, and I truly believe Weld County is one of those places.

FWIW, I am a Colorado native and other than a 4 year stint in the army, I have lived here all my life. Oil and gas has been here in Weld County since before I was born, no "boom town" here. It's how I feed my family. It's one of the highest, if not the highest, economic driver for CO, and the reason Weld County is CO's ONLY debt free county. I sure hope my family is not chased out of Colorado because of how people in Denver, Boulder, and Co Springs vote on something they don't truly understand.

 

[sndmn11]

Again, Colorado is not the Bakken or Texas, or the sage brush sea of Wyoming. Have you ever been to the Bakken? ANY economic boom to a small town in the armpit of a state and there will be growing pains. There was literally NO infrastructure in the bakken, no housing, workers were having to live in man camps. They weren't ever going to attract a top of class workforce there, and of course the scourge of our society will flock to those places to take advantage.

Show me, other than anecdotal, where that has occurred as a direct result of oil and gas IN COLORADO?

You're obviously set in your delusions, but I challenge you to come on up to weld county and see how we ACTUALLY do things up here, talk to landowners with activity on their land, learn about the safety precautions we take (our TRIR is less than the accounting industry, meaning you have a higher chance of injury or OSHA recordable incident as a CPA than you do working for my company.) There are places you can responsibly develop oil and gas without an increased environmental impact, and I truly believe Weld County is one of those places.

FWIW, I am a Colorado native and other than a 4 year stint in the army, I have lived here all my life. Oil and gas has been here in Weld County since before I was born, no "boom town" here. It's how I feed my family. It's one of the highest, if not the highest, economic driver for CO, and the reason Weld County is CO's ONLY debt free county. I sure hope my family is not chased out of Colorado because of how people in Denver, Boulder, and Co Springs vote on something they don't truly understand.

My cousin works for Anadarko but has been busy with a wedding and just got back from her honeymoon so I have not asked her this yet...

If this law were in place when you started in the industry, what percentage of sites you have been on would not exist?

 

[Hoot]

My cousin works for Anadarko but has been busy with a wedding and just got back from her honeymoon so I have not asked her this yet...

If this law were in place when you started in the industry, what percentage of sites you have been on would not exist?

I started almost 11 years ago, horizontal drilling started about 7 years ago, none of that would have existed, at least not here. Horizontal drilling on US onshore is what led to the capacity for US energy independence, and the reason global oil prices dropped so low in 2014. If not for domestic oil production, I'd speculate that oil would be north of 120/bbl and we'd be paying north of 5 dollars at the pump right now...

Guaranteed, Colorado's economy, especially the housing market, would not have rebounded from 2008 as well as it did, and our housing values would not have done what they have in the last 6 years...

 

[sndmn11]

I started almost 11 years ago, horizontal drilling started about 7 years ago, none of that would have existed, at least not here. Horizontal drilling on US onshore is what led to the capacity for US energy independence, and the reason global oil prices dropped so low in 2014. If not for domestic oil production, I'd speculate that oil would be north of 120/bbl and we'd be paying north of 5 dollars at the pump right now...

Guaranteed, Colorado's economy, especially the housing market, would not have rebounded from 2008 as well as it did, and our housing values would not have done what they have in the last 6 years...

That didn't really answer my question, or I am too ignorant on the subject to realize it did. I am asking because I am curious if a set back of 2500' compared to what is current would be a huge change or not really matter. There has got to be some locations now that wouldn't exist if this law were in place years ago, and there has got to be some that are beyond 2500'. So what is your estimate of the mix? Like if we said a .30 caliber bullet shot at an elk must weight more than 125 grains, it wouldn't effect a lot of people, but if we said it must weigh more than 220grains, it would effect a whole lot.

 

[3forks]

I'd contend that Colorado legalizing marijuana, and the resulting weed boom has had as much (if not more) of negative impact on the state than the oil boom that Elkduds mentioned.

I initially thought that legalizing weed would be a good thing for the state, but it certainly attracted way more undesirables here than any oil and gas operation would.

 

[Hoot]

That didn't really answer my question, or I am too ignorant on the subject to realize it did. I am asking because I am curious if a set back of 2500' compared to what is current would be a huge change or not really matter. There has got to be some locations now that wouldn't exist if this law were in place years ago, and there has got to be some that are beyond 2500'. So what is your estimate of the mix? Like if we said a .30 caliber bullet shot at an elk must weight more than 125 grains, it wouldn't effect a lot of people, but if we said it must weigh more than 220grains, it would effect a whole lot.

Sorry, I should have been more clear, the answer is 100 percent of the locations would not exist, the 2500’ setback closes off an estimated 85% of state and private lands. You are correct that some (15%) of the land is beyond the 2500’, but farmers aren’t going to want us putting facilities out in the middle of their fields, not to mention the road systems we’d have to put in to access the facilities.

In the last decade, our focus has been building facilities and pad drilling in an effort to reduce our footprint, not increase it. If only 15% of the area is developable, you’ll see companies move their operations out of Colorado, and smaller operations will just fold up.

Of course all industry professionals are against this proposition, it’s our livelihoods at stake. Of course oil companies from inside the state and out are going to fight this, they’re in business for a reason and Colorado oil and gas is significant to that business. But don’t just take our words for it, look into all the city councils, mayors, county commissioners, legislators, candidates, etc. from across the entire political spectrum that oppose this. Look into the epa report on fracking, (it’s safe and has never contaminated a water supply, even though people like to claim otherwise.)

I’ll be the first to agree that there are places oil and gas should not be developed, but that doesn’t mean we should have a blanket statewide ban on development, that should be left to local governments to decide what’s best in their areas. More government and more regulation in an overreaching one size fits all approach is never good in my opinion...

 

[5MilesBack]

More government and more regulation in an overreaching one size fits all approach is never good in my opinion...

And that's the bottom line, right there.

 

[Hoot]

That didn't really answer my question, or I am too ignorant on the subject to realize it did. I am asking because I am curious if a set back of 2500' compared to what is current would be a huge change or not really matter. There has got to be some locations now that wouldn't exist if this law were in place years ago, and there has got to be some that are beyond 2500'. So what is your estimate of the mix? Like if we said a .30 caliber bullet shot at an elk must weight more than 125 grains, it wouldn't effect a lot of people, but if we said it must weigh more than 220grains, it would effect a whole lot.

Here are a couple videos that explain better...

Reality Check: Ad On Divisive Proposition 112 << CBS Denver

YouTube

 

[Whiskey_Fish]

We probably could’ve passed something useful, like mandatory groundwater/air quality impact studies. But instead some non-scientists wrote up 112 to be intentionally inflammatory and wasted everyone’s time. Typical.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Ndbowhunter]

^^^^

Ya swaged up with one hit.

 

[cuerro viejo]

Follow the $. Opposition ads for this issue have cost 3 times more than every other political advertising campaign in CO, combined. The $ is almost entirely coming from out of state, big oil deep pockets. That pisses me off, nonresidents paying heavily to buy our election. And as a landowner influenced by lack of adequate setbacks, I know the risks; noise, social upheaval, environmental degradation, high drugs/crime. Lies aside, intensive gas/oil development has not benefitted the Piceance deer herd, formerly the largest in the state, now a shadow of its former self. As a sportsman and landowner, the first circle I'm filling in will be YES on 112. How much dark $ do you think was paid to Elway, Salazar, Norton, the 2 combat veterans, the featured teachers, and every other talking head big oil bought for their commercials? Aren't record profits year after year enough for the industry? The industry still pays a small % of private property lease rates for royalties off public lands, which is a massive, ongoing subsidy from the pockets of taxpayers to benefit the struggling oil corporations, drillers, pipers and refiners. Not to mention their massive corporate tax cut this year. A rant, well justified.

PS, big oil is pushing 74 as well, I'm opposed. Follow the $. In politics, nothing else matters.

Umm one of the largest drillers, production and downstream operations in CO are the Southern Ute Indian Reservation...

 

[cuerro viejo]

Sorry, I should have been more clear, the answer is 100 percent of the locations would not exist, the 2500’ setback closes off an estimated 85% of state and private lands. You are correct that some (15%) of the land is beyond the 2500’, but farmers aren’t going to want us putting facilities out in the middle of their fields, not to mention the road systems we’d have to put in to access the facilities.

In the last decade, our focus has been building facilities and pad drilling in an effort to reduce our footprint, not increase it. If only 15% of the area is developable, you’ll see companies move their operations out of Colorado, and smaller operations will just fold up.

Of course all industry professionals are against this proposition, it’s our livelihoods at stake. Of course oil companies from inside the state and out are going to fight this, they’re in business for a reason and Colorado oil and gas is significant to that business. But don’t just take our words for it, look into all the city councils, mayors, county commissioners, legislators, candidates, etc. from across the entire political spectrum that oppose this. Look into the epa report on fracking, (it’s safe and has never contaminated a water supply, even though people like to claim otherwise.)

I’ll be the first to agree that there are places oil and gas should not be developed, but that doesn’t mean we should have a blanket statewide ban on development, that should be left to local governments to decide what’s best in their areas. More government and more regulation in an overreaching one size fits all approach is never good in my opinion...

2500’ set back would also cut out the most popular alternative energy forms also if was imposed on turbines

 

[sveltri]

This is going to be long but Ill title each section so you can read what you are interested in.

Other Various Ramblings
The setbacks have become an issue over the last few years as Colorado's population has exploded and as a result development has pushed into historical oil and gas fields. The oil and gas fields haven't moved but developers have. I don't understand how none of this flareup has been directed back to the developers. When they buy a piece of land to put an entire neighborhood on it they know that oil ops are near by and they can look at permits waiting to be acted on. But they build it anyways, sell it to someone, and then a drilling rig pulls up and pops a hole in the ground. For some reason, no one ever looks back at the developer who just made off like a bandit and ask him why he didn't share this info with them.

Much like the gun politics, this is a situation where as Colorado becomes deeper and deeper blue the line will continue to be pushed inch by inch. They will get the oil and gas industry out at some point either through restrictive regulation or other tactics.

Nailed it!!