Oil and gas setbacks debate continues to November vote
I am so glad Coloradans have a chance to protect themselves this election.
Watching the recent news of people evacuated from their homes in Boston amid dozens of gas explosions, and immediately remembering our own Firestone tragedy in Colorado where two people were killed, Proposition 112 gives me some solace. It is something we citizens can do to protect ourselves. The Boston tragedy is believed to have been related to a gas line being taken out of service. In Colorado we have thousands of miles of gas flow lines, and we’ve learned our own fatal lesson about them. Flow lines are fallible. Wait long enough and all lines will eventually fail … from corrosion, weather events or human error.
This is not a comforting thought. Coloradans are already endangered by thousands of wells in our state and we don’t need to worsen our odds of harm with thousands more. We need to put in place some commonsense constraints. It is unthinkable to have these industrial operations within 500 feet of our homes and 1,000 feet of our schools … the current law.
Let us pass Proposition 112, the Safer Setbacks measure, in November, increasing the setback of operations to 2,500 feet.
Voting is one way we can act to protect ourselves. Colleen Nunn, Denver
As someone who works in the oil and gas industry, I find it curious that so much of the support for Proposition 112 seems to come from Boulder County. Boulder County has basically no oil and gas development, yet its residents seem fully behind the measure. Why? Weld County, where I live, has almost all of the development in Colorado, yet the support for Proposition 112 is incredibly sparse. That cannot be a coincidence as Boulder seeks to force its antifossil fuel agenda on the rest of the state, no matter the economic damage it does to the rest of us. Our country thrives because of oil and gas, and this measure would be catastrophic. I hope Colorado stands with those who know and experience oil and gas firsthand, and resoundingly votes down this terrible initiative. Jill Andrews, Dacono