Rest in Peace?
Residents outside of Aztec, New Mexico are less worried about resting in peace and more worried about living in peace.
Since energy giant BP has bought up the majority of the mineral rights in the area, homeowners have had little say in the oil tycoon’s decision to drill a well in their own backyard.
With wells as close as 150 yards to peoples’ backdoors and coupled with the poor maintenance and upkeep BP is known for, homes are being infiltrated with toxic chemicals. In many cases, residents can’t even leave their house without seeing and feeling the toxic scar of the oil and gas industry.
Residents of Aztec are being subjected to this nightmare so BP can frack the earth.
Aztec is located in the four corners part of New Mexico and Colorado which unfortunately sits on top of the Lewis Shale; an oil producing area similar to the infamous Marcellus Shale of the East Coast. This area ins being viewed with dollar signs by big oil companies which have begun using the Haliburton-developed drilling technology, hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking.
Fracking, a form of Extreme Energy, is incredibly destructive and highly toxic for the nearby community. The process of fracking emits Nitrogen Oxide and volatile organic compounds, including Hydrogen Sulfide, into the air and leaves toxic waste-water pools around the community. Researchers estimate that 65 of the chemical compounds released into the air through fracking are harmful to human health. Short term effects of exposure include itchy/burning eyes while long term effects can mean contracting a rare cancer.
And some effects aren’t that subtle. In Durango, Colorado a house literally exploded due to a methane leak in a nearby oil well, but the drilling continues…..
This was a place that the GCM team had to get to.
We started out with an infamous toxic tour through North Western New Mexico, the same tour that was featured in the HBO Documentary, Gasland, with the same tour guide, and in fact the same truck. We drove around neighborhoods, schools, churches all struggling to co-exist in a toxic bubble.
According to Josh Fox, Gasland filmaker, “A loophole in the 2005 Energy Bill exempts gas drillers from EPA guidelines, like the Clean Water Act.” This allows Big Oil to make the rules which safeguard our health.
Like the rule of spraying the toxic waste-water ponds into the air in hopes of evaporation. Even deep water drilling was more thought out that that!
Aside from making the rules, oil and gas companies are also the only ones enforcing them. It’s not uncommon to see the protective liner, separating the toxic waste-water from the ground water, floating around on the surface of the waste-water pond.
Does the oil and gas industry even care about toxic containment? Residents can literally light their tap water on fire, but the drilling continues……
And GCM was ready for action. We teamed up with a grassroots community organization, The San Juan Alliance, and led a Bucket Brigade Training. We connected with the residents, taught them how to take an accurate air sample and empowered them with Buckets! They no longer have to sit around waiting for the EPA to come out and do air monitoring.
While the drilling will continue, (it needs to for the community’s economy), with the power of the new Bucket Brigade, the oil and gas industry will learn to be a better neighbor.
Air Hugger 
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April 19, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Breathing Zone Required: Toxic Air Pollution in US Schools « Air Hugger
[…] has frequently discussed the up and coming natural gas development in the San Juan Basin spreading across much of NM and CO. Five years ago, Sunnyside Elemenatry […]
February 16, 2012 at 5:18 pm
Randy Barton
This is without a doubt one of the most uninformed blogs on the oil and gas industry I have ever read. It is obvious to me the people who write this crap don’t know a thing about what they are talking about. You site harmful chemicals left behind after fracing and don’t name a one of them. I have been in this industry for 34 years and don’t know of a cleaner, more regulated business than the oil and gas business. The state of Colorado has a agency; called the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission and they strickly watch the activities of the industry. I have been around fracing for many years and the frac fluid goes harmlessly into the formation they are fracturing. There is no way the ground water ever is in danger because it is seperatly cemented off from the main well bore with surface pipe. Don’t listen to uninformed people who wish to destroy a industry that can bring us back from the brink of financal diasaster, and help to set us free from the enemies of america. This has become a national security problem that threatens our countrys existance. Maybe its time as americans we should seek out right answers to questions from people who work in the industry and not from people who have just decided to be against something because it is the popular thing to do.
March 1, 2012 at 6:58 pm
jmalonehendricks
First, thank you for reading our Airhugger blog! I’m glad we got this opportunity to further the discussion between industry folks and Environmental Justice organizations who have heard the concerns of the residents living on the fencline of fracking operations, first hand.
In 2010, Global Community Monitor launched a Bucket Brigade with residents in the San Juan Basin and Garfield County, CO. Trained residents took air samples near community identified ‘hot spots’ and discovered a toxic mix of 22 volatile organic compounds related to natural gas development, including Benzene and three other known carcinogens. Feel free to check out GASSED!, the report published on this project which includes the air monitoring results and sites the names of the harmful chemicals left behind.
http://gcmonitor.org/article.php?id=1339
Although, fracking is regulated it is still exempt from standard environmental regulations, like the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. In addition, many energy companies have even refused to disclose the chemicals that are injected into the soil right next to homes, schools and residential water wells.
Ironically, you mention the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission (COGCC), which is the same agency the members of the Battlement Mesa Bucket Brigade are working with directly. The Colorado School of Public Health began a Health Impact Assessment in relation to the expanding oil and gas industry, and in 2011 the second draft was released. The Executive Summary states that:
“The key findings of our study are that [the] health of the Battlement Mesa residents will most likely be affected by chemical exposures, accidents or emergencies resulting from industry operations and stress-related community changes.” On the first page of recommendations for local governments, the study states, “Currently, there is not enough information to determine whether or not current federal, state and COGCC [Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission] regulations are sufficient to protect public health”
The County Commissioners later put a halt to the Health Impact Assessment, prior to the release of a final draft due to the fact that it had become a ‘political football’.
Although, I agree that oil and gas development could lead to an increase in temporary jobs for the short-term, this kind of oil and gas development, as it is currently, is not economically or environmentally sustainable. Maybe it’s time, as Americans, we should seek safe and sustainable energy alternatives that create lasting jobs and promote a clean and healthy environment.