Proposition 112 serves all of Colorado. Those 2,500-foot setbacks are intended to shield from harmful substances and provide for safer and healthier environments in communities that have oil/gas activity.
It is important to pro-actively safeguard our health, our communities, our mountain state all together. What better place than Durango and Southwest Colorado with its wonderful scenery, history and magnificent mountains to remind us to be cognizant of the health and safety of our environments.
A current digital transformation in oil and gas, using machine learning and AI, results in the automation and optimization of drilling and fracking. There is much less of a need to drill close to any community. Industry players already establish data science departments, strive to minimize natural gas/methane leaking, use solar panels to replace gas-driven equipment and employ other measures to contribute to safer environments in Colorado.
Safer setbacks are also needed from an environmental perspective. Consider that each drilling locality has its unique characteristics in terms of topography, wind patterns and proximity to residential areas. On any given day, as winds shift, so do the transport and direction of chemicals and substances released from facilities.
Our human bodies’ different tolerances act together with environmental patterns to create risks that can’t be easily quantified and may not manifest themselves over decades. It is necessary to utilize our societal responsibility to our neighbors to mitigate and minimize risks from potential harmful substances.
Proposition 112 is a first step.
Peter Jaumann
Erie
