Fracking up El Paso County
In August, Ultra purchased 115 oil and gas leases covering about 59,000 acres of mineral rights on state Land Board land in August from another company, Pine Ridge Oil and Gas.
The Banning Lewis deal
appears to be just one part of Ultra's plans for drilling in the area.
Ultra paid $1.67 million in July and August to Denver-based Pine Ridge
Oil & Gas LLC for leases on nearly 100,000 acres of land in eastern
El Paso County and an exploratory well east of Fountain.
Ultra told stockholders in August that it had "amassed nearly 100,000
net acres targeting the Niobrara formation in the Denver-Julesburg Basin
in Colorado"
One drilling site is
just south of Curtis and Drennan roads, near the Banning Lewis Ranch.
Another is south of Squirrel Creek Road east of Fountain, and the third
is south of Highway 94, between Ellicott andYoder.
Kelly Whitley, an Ultra spokeswoman, confirmed the company had acquired 18,000 acres in the Banning-Lewis ranch.
The alluvial aquifers of El Paso County
1. The Laramie-Fox Hills
Aquifer in EPC is a shallow, alluvial structure.
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2. In 2005 congress exempted Big Oil/Gas/Coal from all clean air and water
regulations.
3. In 2006 8 million cubic feet of drilling fluids and methane leaked from
the ground near a gas well in Clark, Wyoming contaminating groundwater and
surface water.
4. In 2008, in the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, 13 water wells were contaminated
with methane (one of them blew up), and the gas company, Cabot Oil & Gas,
had to financially compensate residents and construct a pipeline to bring
in clean water. That was a deep Marcellus Shale structure, NOT a shallow,
MUCH MORE FRAGILE alluvial aquifer.
... 5. In 2007 in Bainbridge, Ohio, a well contaminated
groundwater, including the water source for the township’s police station.
After building to high pressures, gas migrated through underground faults,
and blew up a house.
6. Horizontal shale wells use from 2 to 10 million gallons of water to fracture
a single well.
7. The EPA says 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are used to fracture 35,000
wells in the US EACH YEAR.
8. Of the known 206 chemicals used in fracking, 71 are known carcinogens and
toxins.
For the next 6 months Big OIl/Gas/Coal will try to dominate the information
that the council gets.
We have to be their resource because they were elected by us and they represent
US.
http://youtu.be/
http://tinyurl.com/6mvmzzr
Location of one of the Ultra test drilling sites
Toxins already found in Black Squirrel Aquifer wells from agricultrual runoff
Existing wells of the Black Squirrel alluvial aquifer near an Ultra test drilling site
What
they've already done to Weld County and what they will eventually do to El
Paso County
Wells in western El Paso County just west of one of the Ultra test well sites
Exiting wells in El Paso County by registry number
Glad to see some exposure of this idiotic technique Shell is attempting,
which is on the same level as the Rulison nuclear, in situ retort of
oil from rock, which surprised all these Mensa rejects when they found
out that the oil produced was radioactive. (duh)
Now, they try freezing the rock 4,000 feet deep to keep the oil from
mixing with the water aquifers, which exposes several facts about all
this fracking nonsense.
1. If there's no chance of mixing, then why such elaborate effort to
keep the water from being fouled?
2. When water freezes, it expands with 30,000 pounds of force. Think
that might fracture the impervious rock protecting the aquifer?
3. The cost to freeze around a field is prohibitive from the start (unless
there's a market for a $20,000 barrel of oil) AND, as we all know from
pipes freezing in the winter, the problem isn't when the pipe is frozen,
but when the pipe thaws. Are they seriously going to keep that rock
frozen until the end of time?
4. Another obvious question is this: since the US reached "Peak Oil"
in 1970-71 and Big Oil wants to even attempt these crazy schemes to
get more oil and gas, doesn't it argue that the time is here for clean,
renewable, infinite, domestic energy sources?
Yes, fracking for gas and this in situ retort are 2 different processes,
but many of the dangers are the same.
Whether you exert pressure with frozen water or high pressure fracking
toxic liquids, the result is similar.
You create fractures to the rock that has been separating the clean
water we drink from the pockets of oil and gas that are toxic when ingested.
There are tons of fissures below us already and adding pressure to the
deposits just pushes those toxins into our groundwater supply.
Not to mention the 2-10 million gallons of water each fracked up well
bore requires and the same amount that is later sucked out, to poison
the surface water with the toxic fracking liquids they use.