Volunteers Sought for Quality of Life Study

Researchers at the University of Colorado are looking for volunteers to participate in a study on how people respond to oil and gas development in their communities.

"Your participation should take no more than 1 hour at a time for up to 6 visits to our office in Greeley over a 6-9 month period. During the office visits, we will ask questions about your health, collect height and weight data, measure blood pressure and blood vessel health, collect a blood sample, collect a small hair sample, and collect cheek cells from the inside of your mouth with a swab.

You will be compensated with a $30.00 Visa gift card for each visit completed. In order to qualify for this study you must meet the following criteria:

 18 years old or older
 live within 2 miles of an oil or gas well
 be a non-smoker (tobacco and marijuana)
 cannot live with anyone who regularly smokes in your home
 cannot be pregnant
 cannot have a history of diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or chronic     inflammatory diseases
 cannot be taking statins or any anti-inflammatory medications
 cannot be regularly exposed dust, fumes, or solvents 

If you would like to participate in this study, or have any questions, call 970-829-7490 or email lindsay.taylor@ucdenver.edu

Project Title: QBC Study: Quality of Life and Biomarkers in Communities
Principal Investigator: John Adgate PhD, MSPH
Version Date: 8/12/15

Drilling in Evans Neighborhood

Noble Energy and other oil companies want people to believe they are caring stewards of the environment, as shown in this video. But how caring are they when they drill smack in the middle of this Evans, CO neighborhood, just 100 feet from the closest home, and 1,000 feet from Ann Heiman Elementary School? (Scroll down for photos)

I doubt the people who live there knew that would be a possibility, because a well head existed before they moved in. Few people realize that putting in a new well is not the end of drilling.  Often wells need to be stimulated into producing again with hazardous substances like hydrochloric and hydrofluoric acid; chemicals you do not want in your neighborhood! Plus, there is the danger of a blowout .

Of note too is this

Toxic vapors suspected in deaths of three Colorado oil and gas workers


The article stays mum on the likelihood that those deaths might be caused by dangerous hydrogen sulfide that can kill within minutes.

What happens when that gas escapes in large quantities? What if such a well has a blowout such as the one in China in 2003 that killed more than 200 people and hospitalized 4,000! See:

Tragedy of errors in Chongqing's gas blowout  

And this! 

Children can suffer DNA damage and illness from leaking sour gas several kilometres away, yet B.C. allows wells within 150 metres of schools


It is appalling and beyond the pale, especially when more and more findings show that less lethal gases that escape are really hazardous to people's health as well!

Fracking may affect air quality, human health  "People living or working near active natural gas wells may be exposed to certain pollutants at higher levels than the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for lifetime exposure. Air pollution from fracking operations may pose an under-recognized health hazard to people living near them, the researchers concluded."   

(Photos: Robert Winkler)

West of 35th ave and north of 37th st, Evans.

Noble Energy "Community Gardening" TV Commercial

Increase in birth defects near oil and gas wells

"Pediatricians with a lot of experience...already describe problems in children within large range, I'm not talking about 1500 feet, I'm talking about the whole city...who's kidding who here?...The implications of this for the short, medium and long term, are so tremendously critical!...I have a lot of women friends who have disabled children, and when you are talking about 30% increases in birth defects and such...I don't know what else to say!"

See the entire recorded testimony to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission below.

Also see this recent article:

Dead babies near oil drilling sites raise questions for researchers

 "..Beau and a dozen other infants died in this oil-booming basin last year. Was this spike a fluke? Bad luck? Or were these babies victims of air pollution fed by the nearly 12,000 oil and gas wells in one of the most energy-rich areas in the country? Some scientists whose research focuses on the effect of certain drilling-related chemicals on fetal development believe there could be a link." 

Air Monitoring Not Something We Typically Do

Extraction's Oil and Gas informational neighborhood meeting at Frontier Academy drew about 70 people, and several of those were from the industry itself. The vice president of Mineral Resources, Logan Richardson, and one of his brothers were in the audience too, but they or their company now partnering with Extraction, were not mentioned a single time. See the Tribune's article on this 'strategic' alliance.

Chief Financial Officer Rusty Kelley (left), listens to a parent.

Before the meeting I thought Extraction was a large operator and would use state of the art equipment; a stationary drilling rig versus the mobile, rickety kind that Mineral resources uses, but when president Matt Owens introduced himself, I realized that Extraction is only a marginally bigger company than Mineral Resources. According to info on Linkedin it has between 11 and 50 employees.

Extraction President Matt Owens

The young age of Owens, barely older than 30, should perhaps raise a red flag. He worked in the industry for three employers for a total of eight years. Is that really long enough to build the expertise necessary to start a company (founded in November, 2012) and, more importantly, taking on the job of drilling inside a city, near a school? 

One of the best questions asked was by a parent who wondered if Extraction would monitor the air quality near the school on a regular basis. Owens said that "Air monitoring is not something we typically do", then handed the microphone to John Tonello for a more in depth answer. See video below.

If an oil and gas installation was to be placed near my child's school I would certainly want to know if the air near the building and playground would be safe enough to breathe on a regular basis. This recent finding by Project Playground: Cleaner Air for Active Kids is of special interest to parents with children in close proximity to wells. For instance:

"Benzene was found at all but one sampling location, and it was found at levels above the TCEQ ESLand the AMCV at three locations. This particularly noteworthy as benzene is a known carcinogen (based on evidence from studies in both people and lab animals), AND because it exceeds both the TCEQ ESL and AMCV. Benzene has been linked largely to leukemia and cancers of other blood cells. Benzene can also cause excessive bleeding and can affect the immune system, increasing the chance for infection.

TCEQ ESL: Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Effects Screening Levels 

AMCV:  Air Monitoring Comparison Values

Source: Project Playground Report 

All the more reason to monitor the air. If the company is so sure no emissions of any kind from the pad will reach the school, they should be willing to prove it, and in doing so offer parents much needed peace of mind.

Attend Hearing: Support Children of Frontier Elementary

Please attend and invite others to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Committee hearing on

 

Monday, July 28 at 9:00am

 Weld County Administration Building Events Center

 1150 “O” Street, Greeley, CO 80631 

Please arrive by 8:45am. Comments will be taken until 11:00am

This hearing is a rare opportunity for Front Range citizens to be heard directly by the COGCC.

It is critical for as many concerned citizens as possible to come tell the COGCC that school children should be protected from hazardous, polluting drilling operations near their schoolyards and homes.
They need to hear what you think of the job they are doing under their mandate to protect public health and safety.

This is your chance to tell them about how this scale of oil and gas development has impacted your, or your loved ones' life and be heard about concerns such as:

 1) Public health and safety concerns - drilling near homes and schools exposes the public to higher levels of benzene and other hazardous chemicals. Recent tank explosions should be reason enough to move these industrial facilities away from where people live!

 2) Pressure tactics put on mineral rights owners to lease their property against their will - Forced pooling allows operators to take away our right to choose whether or not our property should be developed for oil and gas. Oil and gas development hurts property values.

 3) The heavy concentration of wells and tanks they have approved next to homes, schools and commercial districts in Greeley and Weld County – large industrial sites do not belong in residentially-zoned land!

Comments should be short—three minutes or less.

 Please share this message and invite friends, neighbors or family to the hearing as well!