Environmental Issues and Protection

Fracking documentaries square off in Boulder tonight

Filmmakers Josh Fox and Phelim McAleer are having quite an argument, but mostly on film and not in the same room. Both men will be in Boulder tonight at the same time to present documentaries that claim to expose the truth about using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in natural gas drilling. But t ... More >>

Save the Earth

"Mustang" will glow on when lights go out at DIA tomorrow

Is Denver International Airport in the dark? The airport will be celebrating touchy-feely Earth Hour tomorrow, turning off lights between 8:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 23. The black-out includes the illuminated DIA sign along Pena Boulevard, the illuminated sign marking the Jeppesen Ter ... More >>

Top six Colorado drinks/liquids Hickenlooper should promote instead of fracking fluid

Governor John Hickenlooper is just back from the National Governor's Conference in Washington, where he did not talk about drinking fracking fluid, as he had during Senate testimony two weeks ago. Hick's quip about his sip of frack fluid made headlines, but there are at least six Colorado drinks we' ... More >>

Fracking moratorium in Boulder County extended to June, residents placated -- for now

With the public speaking out overwhelmingly against hydraulic fracturing in Boulder County, the board of commissioners voted unanimously to temporarily extend the existing moratorium on processing drill permits until June 10, 2013. And while the decision didn't please everyone, many saw it as a step ... More >>

Fracking opponents' horror stories exaggerated, says FrackNation director in town tonight

The hydraulic fracturing process involves pumping chemicals into the ground to free oil and gas reserves trapped in tight shale formations. The debate over fracking's environmental risks isn't all that different; it's become a battle to squeeze a few facts out of stubbornly entrenched forces, amid a ... More >>

The conversion story in Promised Land is sometimes a hard sell

Fracking the North Fork: Protests pour in over BLM lease plan

When Colorado native son Ken Salazar became Barack Obama's Secretary of the Interior four years ago, it was widely expected that he would steer a more "balanced" course through the energy wars across the West, pulling back on the drill-baby-drill mantra of the Bush years. It hasn't worked out that w ... More >>

Controversy over fracking continues despite industry's best efforts to bury it

Fracking-regulations battle on federal lands heats up

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is on record as saying that hydraulic fracturing methods to extract oil and gas "can be done safely," but he's not overly impressed with varying state rules overseeing the drilling process. He's been pushing in recent months for his department to tighten its req ... More >>

Fracking: Website tries to show oil and drilling are great for Colorado

Oil and drilling do wonderful things for Colorado, and government better stay out of the industry's way. This seems to be an underlying message behind a new web portal launched this week by the Western Energy Alliance, a Colorado-based group that represents hundreds of oil and gas companies in th ... More >>

Fracking: Aurora votes to "lease" water to Anadarko Petroleum

Gaylord Entertainment dumped its plans for a giant hotel/convention center/resort in Aurora, and GE has postponed its big new plant in Aurora -- if not ditched it entirely. But at least Aurora had control over one business deal: It had no problem selling its water to an oil and gas company.

ExxonMobil's Rex Tillerson rejects "fear factor" in climate change research

Give Rex Tillerson some credit. At least the ExxonMobil CEO has avoided claiming that global warming isn't real, the way tobacco executives used to pretend lung cancer was just some weird, wacky, luck-of-the-draw disease that had no linkage to massive consumption of their product. Tillerson just h ... More >>

Fracking the North Fork Valley: Opponents exult as BLM defers drilling

Yesterday the U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it would remove 22 proposed oil and gas parcels in the scenic North Fork Valley from a summer lease sale, opting instead to "conduct additional analysis...based on public input." And the public that's been deluging the BLM with input -- obj ... More >>

Air quality: The EPA tentatively approves Colorado's plan to reduce brown cloud

Some things about Colorado just don't change. But while the state has been the country's leanest, meanest anti-obesity machinefor years, it's struggled with, lived under and remain concerned about the brown cloud even longer. But this morning, Governor John Hickenlooper shared news that the State Im ... More >>

What the Frack?!: Grassroots group pushes for fracking moratorium in Arapahoe County

The first time Sonia Skakich-Scrima learned about fracking, she was reading the Denver Business Journal almost a year ago to date. What she read alarmed her, but what she Googled afterward tripled that. "I tried to understand why we didn't care about the environment or the aftermath," she says. "I ... More >>

Fracking is booming, but a friendlier name couldn't hurt. Drill, baby, drill!

The word of the year? Our money (and yours) is on "fracking," the shortened term for "hydraulic fracturing," a practice that shook neighborhoods (in some cases literally) around the country this year, and has fueled the oil and gas boom in northeastern Colorado. But if energy execs really want to dr ... More >>

Encana blasts EPA report linking fracking to Wyoming water pollution

Encana WY drill rig. ​In a telephone conference with journalists this morning, officials of the Canadian energy giant Encana sharply disputed an EPA draft report that linked the company's gas drilling operations in Wyoming to contamination of residents' drinking water, calling the report badly ... More >>

Fracking the North Fork: Paonia residents rally against drilling assault

​Thanks to the increasing push for more oil and gas drilling, communities once considered out of the fray are being drawn into the controversies over hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- even folks in the stunning North Fork Valley, an area better known for its organic farms, ranches operate ... More >>

Fracking lovefest blooms from John Hickenlooper's gas play

​Yesterday, amid an unusually genial gathering of environmental and energy leaders, Governor John Hickenlooper unveiled new state rules requiring detailed disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") methods of drilling for oil and gas -- a major step toward transpa ... More >>

Fracking: Polluted water in Wyoming could spell trouble in Colorado

Colorado oil pads.​The release of an EPA report detailing suspected groundwater contamination from gas drilling operations in Wyoming comes just as Colorado is weighing tougher restrictions and wider disclosures about the hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" process -- and may serve as Exhibit A ... More >>

Fracking: Congress needs to drill into the issue, says Diana DeGette

Diana DeGette.​As reported in this space on Friday, a new study from Common Cause tracks how oil and gas interests spent $747 million on lobbying and campaign donations since 2001 to win congressional support for "fracking," hydraulic fracturing drilling methods that involve using toxic chemic ... More >>

Fracking: Gas industry pours $747 million into lobbying and Congress

Colorado well pads. ​As the oil and gas industry has turned increasingly to hydraulic fracturing to extract reserves, fears about groundwater contamination from the toxic chemicals used in "fracking" have intensified. And that's prompted a $747 million spending spree by major industry players ... More >>

Fort Lyon prison could live again as wind farm: The answer, my friend, is blowin' in your face

Mark Manger​It's distressing to learn that the good folks of Bent County are shelling out thousands of dollars a month to lobbyists in an effort to "repurpose" the decrepit, soon-to-be-shuttered state prison at Fort Lyon. After all, we suggested five amazingly practical new uses for the old pl ... More >>

Denver has struggled with ozone levels for thirty years, and the fight isn't over yet

Fracking contamination "inconceivable," says John Hickenlooper -- but EPA disagrees

​Governor John Hickenlooper has walked a taut tightrope on energy issues since taking office, pushing for more natural gas drilling in a state already leading the region in drilling starts, while at the same time nudging the industry toward greater disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic ... More >>

Fracking Aurora is a natural gas: Kenny Be's Worst-Case Scenario

​ On Thursday, June 23, 2011, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission will explain how hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations on the former Lowry Bombing Range comply with Arapahoe County's 2007 Sustainable Growth Objectives. It will be an easy sell...

Fracking primer: State seeks to address uproar over drilling process

​Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking" -- pumping massive amounts of water mixed with toxic chemicals into tight formations to extract oil and gas -- remains a sore subject among environmentalists, neighbors of drilling rigs and some lawmakers, even as energy industry boosters insist it's safe. ... More >>

Jared Polis and Diana DeGette try to tighten regulations on fracking -- again

"Gasland"​Representatives Diane DeGette and Jared Polis are taking another run at tightening federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing, a natural gas drilling technique also known as fracking. Introduced this week by the Colorado twosome and fellow Democratic rep Maurice Hinchey from New Yor ... More >>

Oil companies love horizontal drilling in Weld County: Simpsons' Mr. Burns would approve

​Weld County is undergoing an explosion in the number of oil and gas companies using a technique called "horizontal drilling" to get at deposits deep in the Denver Basin, according to the Greeley Tribune. Which puts us in mind of a certain Simpsons episode.

Gas-drilling oversight bill killed by the House: What's the fracking point?

Gas well pads.​A bill that sought to increase the reporting process for water-quality complaints related to oil and gas drilling in Colorado died quietly at the statehouse yesterday, with Republican lawmakers insisting that the industry's use of hydraulic fracturing fluids, or "fracking," pose ... More >>

Xcel's move away from coal: One step ahead of the feds?

Xcel's coal-fired Comanche plant.​Xcel's evolving proposal to retire several aged coal-fired power plants to comply with a tough new Colorado law has been hailed as bold and innovative. But similar plans may soon be cropping up around the country as utilities face a new round of federal antipo ... More >>

RechargeColorado.com just about out of basic appliance rebates -- but can we interest you in a furnace?

Shut the damn doors and you'll save even more energy.​If you were hoping to get a rebate for buying an energy efficient washing machine, dishwasher or refrigerator, you're probably too late. RechargeColorado.com, the state website that serves as the starting point for the federally funded reb ... More >>

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