Showing posts with label Matt Lepore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matt Lepore. Show all posts

Thursday, May 22, 2014

COGCC Director Implies: Accept Fracking or Move!

Take note Greeley residents! If fracking will take place near your home or your child's school, you have choices according to Matt Lepore. Two, to be exact! Accept the situation, or move away!

Lepore, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, in a CBS Denver clip of May 13, "Community Confronts Controversial Fracking Operation In Greeley" that has since been removed, says: "The governor is listening. We're looking for reasonable solutions".

According to Lepore "the drill rigs were placed after a year of community input, all environmental concerns have been addressed, and the wells are here to stay"

CBS reporter Tom Mustin then asks him, "So what if they still have concerns about it? Is there anything they can do about it?"
Lepore shrugs and responds with "You know, they have choices"

In closing, Tom Mustin says that "Oil and Gas executives have approved another 67 oil wells to be dug here in Greeley; several are near a local school"

See:

Community Confronts Controversial Fracking Operation In Greeley -  May 13, 2014 1:20 PM

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Almost Half of 1000 Spills Contaminated Groundwater.

Interview with Shane Davis, published on Oct 1, 2013



"Shane is a nationally recognized expert data-miner and analyzer of official oil and gas documents. He publishes expose` documents that bring to light the truth about extractive mining that uses hydraulic fracturing and its collective adverse impacts to the environment and to human health.

..His creative methods of using official state data in public debates have the industry and the state calling him the ‘bane of the industry.’ He says:’ if the state and the industry says the data is wrong, that’s ok too, because it’s their data.’

Among some of his research projects, he has proven that one of Colorado’s aquifers was contaminated by oil and gas development [see: The Case of Mr. Anderson's Contaminated Water Well and the Contamination of the Laramie-Fox Hills Aquifer]

"On or about October 22, 2009, Eddy Oil began casing repair operations on the Well, without providing advance notice to COGCC Staff and without prior approval of the Director. This casing repair effort failed. On October 26, 2009, Eddy Oil contacted COGCC Staff for plugging orders on the Well, due the failed casing repairs. Consequently, COGCC Staff gave verbal plugging orders and completed a Form 6, Notice of Intent to Abandon, on the Dupper #2 Well. Eddy Oil then plugged the Well pursuant to the verbal plugging orders."

[Furthermore]...numerous private water wells were contaminated, homes have been built on top of abandoned oil and gas wells that subsequently exploded, groundwater contamination occurs at a staggering rate, playgrounds have been built on-top of backfilled oil and gas industrial waste pits, millions of gallons of toxic chemicals have been spilled and never recovered from the environment and the data goes on and on…"(Source: http://readthedirt.org/author/shane-davis)


Part One 

Shane Davis explains how he became an activist against fracking, and  how hydraulic fracturing works.

 

Part Two 

The environmental devastation by hydraulic fracturing in Weld County, Colorado as a result of the 2013 Front Range Floods.



Part Three 

How the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission has failed to protect the citizens of Colorado from pollution by the Oil & Gas Industry.

 

Monday, July 22, 2013

Dunn's Done it Again!

Tribune reporter Sharon Dunn's article below shows bias for the gas and oil industry. Just compare it to what Bobby Magill wrote on the same subject for the Coloradoan .See: Fracking critics scaring public.
At least he shared the questionable comments by both Matt Lepore, the director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and Weld County commissioner Barbara Kirkmeyer. Dunn shared none!! 

Just as with the Health Forum on the Effects of Hydraulic Fracturing, when Dunn chose to leave out important information, like the dangers of ground level ozone, she this time, ignored Kirkmeyer's accusation that people with concerns about fracking,
"are trying to scare the crap out of everybody with the wrong facts and making things up".
 Dunn should have taken issue with that remark, considering it is Kirkmeyer herself who makes things up, claiming that groundwater is not being contaminated, when a presentation on the COGCC website clearly acknowledges that it has! See 2012 Fracking Spills.



(By Sharon Dunn)
LOVELAND — Fossil fuels will be the chief way America and the world will get its energy for years, and those in the industry must strike a balance between the incredible growth that is propping up the economy and the environmental concerns that follow, said the American Petroleum Institute’s senior economic adviser, Rayola Sougher. “What’s happening here is absolutely phenomenal,” Sougher said in an interview prior to her keynote address at the Energy Summit put on Tuesday by the Northern Colorado Business Report at the Ranch in Loveland.

“But there seems to be a big divide between the ... environmentalists and the oil developers. But they’re not mutually exclusive. We can do both. Everyone in the community has to hold the industry to the highest standards. That should not be negotiable.” The importance of the industry and continued innovation in extracting the resources has proven to be a powerful ally for the United States, not only politically, but for jobs and taxes that have helped build more wealth in the country, she said.

 In fact, America is experiencing a “stunning” energy revolution that is on pace to see the United States become a world leader and net exporter of oil and gas, some say as soon as 2030. “We were accustomed for decades of thinking that we had less oil, and have been making energy policy on that assumption. That entire vision has changed,” Sougher said. “There are millions of new jobs, a great deal of government revenue and it is enhancing energy security.” Last year alone, the United States put 1 million extra barrels of oil on the international market. That has translated to some of the best energy prices in the country, she said, saving American families roughly $926 a year in home energy costs.

 In the last decade, Colorado has seen a six-fold growth in natural gas production and triple the growth in crude oil production. In Colorado, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average energy bills here are 23 percent less than the rest of the nation, largely because of natural gas, Sougher said. “When you add up what you would have been spending, were it not for this technology, it has important repercussions for the family budget,” Sougher said. The technology she speaks of is the advent of hydraulic fracturing coupled with horizontal drilling to get at the resources trapped in the tight shale rock a mile beneath the ground.

She said continued innovation will only enhance production, and likewise enhance job growth. Sougher said this “unconventional drilling,” alone, is responsible for 1.7 million jobs across the country. “And by the end of this decade, that will be 3 million,” Sougher said. “It’s a significant driver of economic growth.” As an example, she pointed to the average wage in the oil fields of $116,000 — 91 percent above Colorado’s average wage. The industry also pumped $1.4 billion into the Colorado economy in taxes in 2011, equivalent to 15 percent of the state’s tax revenue.

 Sougher advocated for more development across the country to keep these numbers high, especially in offshore areas. She also advocated for completion of the XL Pipeline, a pipeline from Canada to the southern links of America’s oil trade hubs, which has been under scrutiny for five years. With more Canadian and U.S. oil entering into the international framework, she said, energy prices will stabilize, even when not-so-stable nations threaten the world’s oil supply.

 At the same time, she said, the industry must work in concert with government officials and residents concerned about safety. She said the industry, too, shares concerns about the environment. They’ve been stewards of best practices since World War I, she said. “We’re on a path now, because of a lot of these breakthroughs, to have 5 percent fewer emissions in 2040 than we had in our peak of 2005,” Sougher said. “A large part of that is the shift more toward natural gas and energy efficiencies. A good part of the credit has to do with technologic innovations.”