Impacted Resident Testimony
Battlement Mesa Prepares for a Continued Fight for Safer Drilling Practices
To me, it wasn’t what I planned for my retirement. I didn’t plan to spend 10 years of my life complaining about the industry. But I felt that it was not right that industry can come into a covenant- protected community and drill a well pad within 500 to 1000 feet of five different neighborhoods.
No Control: How the Oil and Gas Industry Keeps this Retirement Community in the Dark
Sometimes the smells were so bad, we had to come inside and turn our swamp cooler off and shut the doors. I mean, it was really wretched. Sometimes the noises would be that bad, too.
A Cycle of Spills and Lies From the Oil and Gas Industry
A lot of my experience comes with the fact that I’ve seen many accidents related to oil and gas. I’ve been involved with the spills, witnessed a major spill and there is a helplessness because they don’t tell the truth about the magnitude of the accident or the spill.
What Happens to a Retirement Community When Oil and Gas Moves in
From a driller’s perspective I can see where this would be ideal for them. From our perspective and all the people that live here, this isn’t right. And unfortunately, too many government officials are so enamored by the lure of easy oil and gas revenues that they have allowed it to cloud their civic consciences.
The Real Cost of Extractive Economies on Communities
The company, [Extraction Oil and Gas], has consistently lied about the project.
When it’s in Your Backyard
Oil companies don’t seem to have to be as safe as we were in dealing with their water treatment and wastewater.
Residents of Battlement Mesa and Rifle, Colorado, are on the verge of seeing gas companies abandoning their wells and leaving taxpayers to clean up the mess
The Colorado taxpayer is held responsible if we want to have these abandoned orphan wells plugged, we’re going to have to pay for it. The state is going to have to go in and plug those wells.
Abundant clean water: the west’s most valuable resource
Impacted Resident Testimony“Without drinkable water you cannot sustain life…but in this country, people are just totally unaware or totally uninterested by that,” Don Lumbardy said. “Look at Flint Michigan, they still don’t have clean water and nobody seems to care....
Colorado families are worried
In suburban Adams County in 2019, there were 650 proposed wells on 34 sites. 33 of which were located next to homes and schools. Several of them are near my suburban home.
When Plugged Wells Fail
One of the soil gas measurements taken showed elevated levels of methane in a new housing development and near our kids’ newly-built K-8 school.
We’re a very informed community.
Oil and gas development is incompatible with the local economy, the reputation we’ve built here.
This event has had a significant impact on myself and my family
We have seriously contemplated moving, but where would we go?
We are Colorado
I’m currently raising three little girls in Thornton while teaching with the Adams 12 School District. Watching the tidal wave of Oil and Gas operations coming at us from the north is making me consider, for the first time in my life, moving away from my beautiful Colorado home. Living within close proximity to large-scale oil and gas operations comes with daily stress and anxiety.
The Broomfield Story
As residents who do not have mineral rights, we have no say in process, yet we will experience the negative impacts of living near the pad.
I was one of those kids
It’s important for kids to be able to grow up in a healthy environment, knowing that they’re breathing clean air.
David wins over Goliath only in the movies
Two years and 1000 volunteer hours ago, the choice to enter into a lawsuit to protect our health didn’t seem like a choice as much as a moral imperative. 500 feet from my neighbors’ houses was too close.
Mineral lease: An unwelcome Christmas present
We understood just enough to suffer a lot of anxiety going into the holidays: there was going to be drilling occurring under our property, which is in town and on a golf course, and we could agree to the terms outlined in the extraction company’s offer or we would be forced to become a legally liable partner in the drilling.
Triple Creek:The reality of residential oil and gas development
Oil and gas development began on the Triple Creek site behind Lowell and Margie Lewis’ home in the fall of 2016. By January 2017, Margie’s asthma had flared and it continued all year. She had 14 visits to her pulmonologist and to her internist over the course of the next year and a half. Due to the severity of the symptoms, she required oral steroids multiple times.
Impacted Coloradans are suffering
Colorado families need legislators and commissioners of the COGCC – along with officials from the CDPHE – to build a framework with protocols that are tripped when someone presents with exposure illness so that Mothers are not left alone at their dining room tables trying to piece together what happened and how to fix it.
Our Home As Refuge
By 2006 we could count over 40 wells that had been placed in various locations in the area. Another boom would occur around 2016 when developers bought out farmers, and oil and gas rushed in to drill before houses could be built.
The consequence is that we are now surrounded by a constellation of wells that have moved closer and closer to houses, schools, and playgrounds.
Have you, your family, or your business been impacted by oil and gas development in Colorado? Tell us your story!