A Cancer Survivor Speaks

Vote Yes on Proposition 112. 

I have fought prostate cancer for 9 years.

Why did I get prostate cancer?  There was never prostate or any other cancer in my family. Throughout my first 12 years school I drank water contaminated by trichlorethylene, a carcinogenic chemical used to wash airplanes, and now used in fracking.  All three of my schools were wrapped around an airport, an air national guard and a missile plant.  This chemical used to wash airplanes went into the water table and killed hundreds.  Even now hundreds more continue to become ill and die from that ignorant act.

Colorado fracking companies pour trichlorethylene and hundreds of other carcinogens and toxins by the millions of gallons into the ground.  That these chemicals are deadly no longer involves ignorance. Over a thousand peer reviewed studies find the chemicals used in fracking dangerous and deadly as they seep into water, soil and air.  The fracking industry injects these chemicals 300 feet to 1000 feet from schools, playgrounds, athletic fields, hospitals, homes and waterways. Even more important – they choose to.

Children and their parents should not go through the pain and death my friends’ families went through and the uncertainties my family and I now experience.  Our children don’t need to sicken and die but this will continue until the fracking industry is forced to back off two thousand five hundred feet.  

Do not allow this slow murder to continue.

Vote Yes on Proposition 112.  Our children’s lives depend upon it.

Robert Parker, Coaldale

The Fracking Industry Gives Us No Choice

We live in rural, unincorporated Arapahoe County, one mile down a “No Outlet” road off the county highway. We have never been “anti-fracking.” We are voting “Yes” on Proposition 112.

Two years ago, ConocoPhillips applied for a permit to drill a multi-well site at the entrance to our community. In the event of a fire, explosion or other emergency at the site, our only evacuation routes would require all 62 families to drive directly toward the wells. We have repeatedly begged Conoco to research alternate sites since there are 8 square miles of vacant land surrounding us. Eighteen months ago the county told us they would require Conoco to look for an alternate site. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment strongly recommends Conoco “closely examine other locations”, as the site selected is “unreasonable”, and “locating this facility further away from the Watkins Farm subdivision is not likely to affect the ability of (Conoco) to extract the minerals.”

Conoco arrogantly refuses. They claim our community is “not entitled to legal protection under the Oil and Gas Conservation Act.” We have tried for two years to work with Conoco to examine alternative sites. We have spoken at 4 COGCC hearings, and over 10 Arapahoe Board of County Commissioners’ meetings.

For two years, Conoco has turned a deaf ear to our community concerns.

Since, as Conoco claims, we have no legal protection, then our only hope is passing the increased setback rule. Please vote “Yes” with us on Proposition 112.

Becky Roberts, Watkins

Health Concerns About Fracking

It’s important for physicians like me to speak out about public health issues. Although most of us go into medicine to help individuals, many of us now feel we also have a responsibility to address societal and global issues that affect the health of large numbers of people.

Proposition 112 on this year’s ballot increases the buffer zone (or “setback”) between new oil and gas wells; and nearby homes, schools, hospitals and water sources, from the current 500 feet to 2,500 feet. Drilling new wells usually involves fracking—in which a complex mixture of chemicals is combined with millions of gallons of water and then pumped deep underground under high pressure to fracture rock, thus releasing tiny bubbles of gas and oil.

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) is a group that has studied the public health effects of fracking. PSR was founded over 50 years ago to abolish nuclear weapons. Since then their mission has broadened to “educate and advocate on urgent issues that threaten human health and survival.” After studying the adverse health effects of fracking, PSR recommends that fracking should be banned. Short of a ban, from a public health perspective increasing the setback from 500 feet to 2500 feet is clearly an improvement. Here are just a few of the reasons why:

• WATER CONTAMINATION: The gas industry refuses to release a list of all the chemicals used in fracking, but we know what some of them are: benzene, known to cause blood cancers such a leukemia; formaldehyde, a known carcinogen; petroleum distillate toxins which “render water undrinkable.” These and other chemicals not only contaminate water near fracking sites, but have been found to contaminate deep aquafers and can leak from pipes.
• AIR CONTAMINATION: Particulate matter released into the air by fracking and by leaks in gas pipelines contributes to lung diseases including asthma, emphysema and lung cancer; and cardiovascular disease (heart attacks and strokes). Volatile organic compounds including benzene, formaldehyde, toluene and xylene are released into the air around fracking sites, and can cause harm to multiple organ systems.
• RADIOACTIVE SUBSTANCES such as radon—an important cause of lung cancer—can be released by fracking.
• PREGNANT WOMEN AND CHILDREN: Studies have shown that women living around fracking sites have a higher incidence of pregnancy complications, including birth defects and premature births. Children exposed to fracking chemicals can experience health problems, and additional problems will likely become apparent as they grow older.
• STRESS: Your home should be your refuge. When fracking comes to communities, citizens are forced to live in an industrial zone, which impacts stress levels and ultimately their health. It is impossible to enjoy your home and coexist with stadium-style lights blaring through the night 24/7, construction noise and vibration, noxious chemical odors, and tens of thousands of trips by diesel tanker trucks throughout the operation of the well.

• Would you invite all this next to your home? What if it just arrived, uninvited, and there was nothing you could do about it?

  It’s no wonder that last June the American Medical Association, prompted by PSR, voted to divest from companies that get the majority of their income from fossil fuels. It also pledged to do business only with vendors that have environmental sustainability policies.

  So, my prescription for optimal human health is, at the very least, to have 2,500 foot buffer zones around drilling sites. Though the evidence is clear that we need to do much more, Proposition 112 is a great place to start.

  Greg Feinsinger, M.D., (retired family physician—42 years), Carbondale

Support For Prop 112 From An O&G Worker

I support Proposition 112, because I know from my own experience that the oilfield as an industry is not concerned with the well being of its employees, and is much less concerned with the health of the public. 

I first worked on the oil rigs running casing in West Texas. Then later I unloaded trailers full of empty sacks that had contained materials used to make drilling fluid. While unloading these trailers at the landfill, I would breathe in these powders. I started noticing that I produced a lot more phlegm, that my lungs felt full of mucus and I was always coughing it up. These are symptoms that I still have to this day but am hoping go away. Sadly, I have been scared to get tested or have any lung examinations done.

I think that there are many oil workers who have experienced their health deteriorating but fear to get tested. There is also a cultural aspect to this: many Mexican men feel that our worth is connected to toughness and depends on our ability to work. I realize that there is also an oil field sub-culture that discourages workers from getting tested. I ended up leaving the oilfield because I knew that I was causing damage to my body.

Now we have the opportunity to stand up for health and safety by keeping these damaging oil and gas fracking operations farther away from our homes and schools. Please vote Yes on Proposition 112 – Safer Setbacks from Fracking.

Miguel Ceballos-Ruiz, Candidate for Denver City Council District 8

Proposition 112: Health AND a Healthy Economy

Why in the world would the Denver Post come out against public health? That is what it did in its editorial recommending against Proposition 112 (October 11).  

The health science is clear on this.  I am a physician.  I have read and scrutinized the data.  Proposition 112 is not a liberal conspiracy to ban oil and gas operations, it is a common sense initiative to protect Colorado citizens’ health and safety.

There are over 200 peer-reviewed studies that look at health outcome measures related to proximity to fracking operations.  We have studies showing up to a 4.3-fold increased risk of acute lymphocytic leukemia. We have studies showing increased risks of asthma exacerbation from John’s Hopkins University.  There is no question of the credibility of these studies.  And there are hundreds of them. Yet the Post had the gall to cite for support only a single poorly performed air quality study that didn’t even look at health outcomes, and to say they “haven’t seen evidence” of a threat to health and safety.

Fracking operations release benzene into the air. Let’s get real about benzene. There is no safe level of benzene in the body.  The American Cancer Society has a section on its own website discussing the risks of benzene exposure and the known increased risk for cancers related to exposure.  We have kids in Erie with levels of benzene and ethyl-benzene in their blood well above the ‘normal’ levels of exposure.  This is not right.  This is not just.

If pharmaceutical companies were to be held to the same low standards as the oil and gas industry, we would have massive deaths due to poorly studied drugs and devices.  In medical science we require multiple phases of study before a treatment is approved. Oil and gas operations have been “treating” us to benzene and ozone exposure but have not once asked for our consent.  Medical research continues to say there is potential for harm from fracking.  Not a single study has ever shown safety.  

Instead, what we are looking at is a fourfold increased risk of childhood leukemia, fourfold increased risk of severe asthma exacerbation in children and the elderly, and a 25% increase in low birth weight infants of those unfortunate enough to live within a half a mile of a fracking operation.

The risk of industrial accidents related to fracking operations is also concerning.  We have had at least 17 explosions at some level of operation within the last 2 years.  Firestone and Windsor are only the major ones to have made the news.  The blast radius of these explosions is far more than a 500 foot setback would protect against – even 2500 foot would be marginal. The reality is fracking is an industrial operation which does not belong in a residential area. Ignoring this is puts public health at a risk.  

The Post justifies its opposition to Proposition 112 on the basis of what they claim is fracking’s “big part” in Colorado’s economy.  But oil and gas accounts for only about 1% of Colorado’s jobs (compared with 11.6% related to healthcare and 11% related to tourism) and represents less than 5% of Colorado’s economy. And even when Proposition 112 passes, there will still be some 50,000 wells in operation.  Proposition 112 only affects new operations. The industry isn’t going away.

If there is one thing we citizens should be able to ask of our government is that it provide basic safeguards that keep our homes and families from being poisoned by for-profit industrial operations.  Those safeguards should extend to include “vulnerable areas” – which means: “the places where our children play and where our drinking water comes from.”

Proposition 112 is our last resort after asking, and then begging, our officials to defend us.   Health and safety – that’s all we’re asking for – for all of us.  Please vote yes on 112.  

David Nolan, MD Broomfield

Ritter Dodges The Question

            In his recent column opposing Proposition 112, former Governor Bill Ritter says that the proposition was “arrived at in a very non-Colorado way.”

Coming from a former Colorado governor, this claim is especially galling.

For many years prior to Proposition 112, Colorado citizens tried over and over again to work with our leaders in government and industry.   We promoted eleven legislative bills. We tried the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, but its executive director dismissed peer-reviewed studies. We tried for local control but were consistently overruled by the state. Is that “the Colorado way” he prefers?

Ritter repeats the industry talking points and exaggerations and ignores things like the analysis released this month from an assistant professor at the School of Mines that shows that post-Proposition 112 the industry would still be able to access significant reserves – at least three times the amount they falsely claim (https://ljp6c3tnea61xd0wz1l33nmf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/149/2018/10/20181001_Maniloff_Commentary.pdf).

Is it the Colorado way for Ritter to align himself with the large oil and gas corporations based in Texas that export between 60-70% of our resources?

Worst, Ritter ignores crux of the matter: health and safety. In his article he never mentions the words “health” or “safety.”   He ducks the question of why we should expose ourselves to toxic chemicals in the air we breathe, heightened cancer risks and chronic asthma, industrial operations in residential areas, deadly fires and explosions, and more.

Ritter should be on the side of the people of Colorado and support Proposition 112.

Heidi Henkel, Broomfield

Out-of-State Money

Erin Amsberry’s October 8 column in the Colorado Springs Gazette entitled “Out of state anti-fossil fuel money” is misleading at best. She claims that the proponents of Proposition 112 get most of their funding from out of state. Exactly the opposite is true.

The Houston Chronicle of October 4 headlined: “Houston oil companies fight anti-fracking measure in Colorado.” (Note to Ms. Amsberry: Houston is out of state.) The article continues: “Anadarko and Noble… together have contributed about $12 million — $5.8 million each — this year to Protect Colorado, the committee campaigning to block the measure.”

In contrast, the vast majority of funds to Colorado Rising are small dollar donations from local citizens in Colorado. And we are being hugely outspent by industry.

The $30 million war chest of the industry front group dwarfs the $700 thousand that we citizens supporting Proposition 112 have managed to scrape together. (Numbers from the Colorado Secretary of State campaign finance database.)

Those of us supporting Proposition 112 are not wealthy corporations, just workers, homeowners, parents, physicians…concerned citizens trying to protect the health and safety of our neighborhoods. This is truly a David-and-Goliath fight.

The group that Ms. Amsberry represents, the American Energy Alliance, was founded by a former lobbyist for Koch Industries (also out of state).

Ms. Amsberry is correct in saying that “this November, voters must answer: Who should be in the driver’s seat of Colorado’s energy policies — Coloradans or…billionaires who wish to force their ideology on the rest of the country?”

I think the correct answer is: Colorado citizens…who are being assaulted by toxic emissions, oppressed by industrial operations right next door to homes and schools, worried about fatal explosions and fires, and who, having received no relief from the state, have turned to the only recourse left available.

Please support Colorado citizens. Vote yes on Proposition 112.

Cedar Barstow, Boulder

Oil and Gas’s Tit for Tat

Amendment 74 is nothing more than a retaliatory measure against Proposition 112, the safer setback ballot issue. Initiated by Protect Colorado, the PAC for the oil and gas industry, 74 would give property owners, particularly drilling companies with mineral rights, the right to sue state and local governments for reparations if regulations cost them income.

Like spoiled children, oil and gas is saying, ”If you’re gonna restrict our operations in any way, we’re gonna make your governments (and ultimately the taxpayers) pay through the nose with lawsuits.”

Property rights be damned, property owners don’t have the right to use their property to endanger their neighbors. Our governments do have the right and the obligation to protect citizens with regulations, zoning laws, and ordinances.

How can you look at what happened in Oregon in 2004 when a similar amendment was passed and not see that 74 would be bad for Colorado? A deluge of lawsuits cost the state $20 billion in the first three years. Reeling, Oregon voters repealed the amendment four years later.

Who will profit from Amendment 74? Not Colorado’s private property owners, that’s for sure. Any settlement they get in court will be wiped out by increased taxes caused by the massive awards given corporations. Out-of-state corporations and lawyers will be the only winners if Amendment 74 passes.

Fred Malo Jr., Carbondale