Olympic-sized pool
In the spirit of Rahm Emanual’s cynical approach to politics of never letting a crisis go to waste, the left is renewing its call for a restriction of drilling “in and near flood plains,” which if enacted, could effect thousands of producing wells and foreclose on untold future opportunities.
More and more, it seems as if Colorado Democrats and their industry regulators are truly against job growth in Colorado and energy independence for the United States. Perhaps trying to capitalize on this tragedy is what we should expect from a lobby that will perpetuate outright lies to promote its agenda. Whether it is telling people that fracking will cause your tap water to catch on fire, or that fracking causes breast cancer, it is difficult to understand how these people are still considered credible in certain circles.
Now anti-oil and gas interests in Colorado want to restrict exploration in what are considered flood plains, after we experienced a 500-year flood. Urged on by special interest groups such as Earthworks, Conservation Colorado, and Clean Water Action, Hickenlooper’s regulators are in the process of conducting a “formal review” of industry procedures during the floods.
So what happened in the gas patch that was so terrible during the floods? Last week the Denver Business Journal ran a great piece putting that into perspective. In her report, Cathy Proctor put the leakage from operations during the flood in the context of a swimming pool. As of last week, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was looking at 641 barrels of oil released from damaged equipment, which Proctor pointed out accounted for just four percent of the water that would be used to fill an Olympic-sized pool.
While every attempt should be made to minimize contamination from any industrial operation, be it oil and gas exploration or manufacturing, when natural disasters happen, environmental setbacks can occur. This does not mean that we restrict production in flood areas because of a 500-year flood that rolled through our state.