Letter to the Editor: Draco Pad

My name is Skylar Weitzel and I have lived in Erie since 2004.  I didn’t know a lot about Erie’s mining or O&G history when I moved here, probably because I was too distracted by the amazing view of the front range and all the open space.  I remember seeing O&G equipment out in the middle of the open spaces on my way out to I-25, conveniently overlooking them and quickly forgetting about them after they were beyond my rearview mirror when I went back into town from the highway.

Photo: Erie Protectors

In the years since I became an Erie resident, those open spaces east of where we’re tonight have been developed with houses to the point that you can’t even see the O&G equipment from Erie Parkway anymore because homes and families with children mostly surround them.  New families with their young children play outside in the yard, running through the sprinklers in the summer, while many of them have no idea what type of potential health dangers lurk just below the surface and under their basements.

In the last week, there have been multiple town notifications for oil and gas spills in Erie. 5 wells are leaking crude oil and other contaminants into the soil. All of these recent spills are from wells that are owned and operated by Civitas, the same company that is trying to drill the longest horizontal wells under thousands of Erie residents.  As if the size of the project and length of the proposed drilling weren’t enough, they will be attempting to do this while navigating the literal subterranean minefield and the graveyard of capped and/or abandoned wells that were left to spill and leak into the soil by their previous owner before those assets were sold and resold to different O&G companies like mortgage portfolios before the housing crash in 2008.

We are in the middle of a drought in Colorado, and we don’t know how long that drought will last, but I can’t see any logical rationale for allowing the use of nearly a billion gallons of water for this project, which will then be rendered useless due to the chemicals that the fracking will permanently contaminate for residential or even agricultural use.

Photo: Erie Protectors

The Draco pad is a future environmental disaster that can still be avoided if the ECMC does the right thing and puts a stop to the catastrophe before it ever begins.  I will finish with one last thought: imagine if we had all grown up using wind, solar, and other alternative sources of energy, and someone tried to convince us that burning fossil fuels was the newest, dirtiest, and best way to power our electric grid, how crazy would that sound to us?

To get involved in oil and gas operations in Erie, reach out to Erie Protectors: https://erieprotectors.com/