Frack Checked Videos Feature Wes Wilson and Tony Ingraffea
Date: Nov. 2, 2013
Colorado is the midst of a David vs. Goliath fight, in which four municipalities will be voting November 5th on ballot initiatives to protect their communities from fracking. The gas and oil industry has already spent $600,000 on misleading ads and mailers to fight local residents’ rights to home rule. By next week it may well be more than $1,000,000.
Colorado has been called the ground zero of fracking. It has more than 50,000 fracking wells, many within hundreds of yards of schools, homes and public parks. Gas and oil companies are virtually self-regulated, with devastating consequences, as we saw in the recent flooding of thousands of fracking sites that were allowed to be built on a flood zone. Governor Hickenlooper, in fact, is such a supporter, he once claimed to have drunk fracking fluid.
Local groups have taken it upon themselves to try to limit gas and oil activity in their communities. If the initiatives pass, Fort Collins, Broomfield, Boulder and Lafayette would join the city of Longmont by instating local municipal fracking bans and moratoriums.
Because the anti-fracking local campaigns don’t have the spending power of the oil and gas industry, Frack Free Colorado released these video to combat the misinformation campaign laid out by the industry. These videos feature local and national experts who touch on economics, air pollution, groundwater contamination and renewable energy solutions. The first video features EPA whistleblower Wes Wilson and the second features Cornell scientist Tony Ingraffea.
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NEW YORK TIMES, By Jack Healy, November 6, 2013
DENVER — The national debate over hydraulic fracturing and oil and gas drilling found its way to ballots on Tuesday in several communities in Ohio and Colorado, where voters considered proposals to ban or restrict fracking.
With nearly all of the votes counted, unofficial results from county clerks showed the restrictions prevailing in three of four Colorado communities considering them, but failing in two of three Ohio cities.
Grassroots efforts to restrict fracking have put communities on a potential collision course with state officials and the energy industry. Ohio and Colorado say state officials – and not individual cities – are the ones with the power to regulate drilling. And industry groups have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to fight the measures, arguing the bans would harm businesses and are potentially illegal.
“There’s no doubt that there are people concerned about being sued,” said Sam Schabacker, the Mountain West region director of Food and Water Watch, which is supporting the fracking restrictions in four Colorado communities. “It has a chilling effect. But the message I’ve gotten from people at the doors, is that this is worth getting sued over.”