This is my first election and I am a Colorado state delegate.

I was raised skiing in the mountains and kayaking on the river. Last year, the Animas River was poisoned by the mining industry, creating a Superfund site, meaning that our tax dollars will now be spent cleaning up their mess.

Toxic river water has created lead poisoning in Michigan. Fracking has caused earthquakes in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. Refineries in Ohio are poisoning the air so badly that 14 percent of Ohioans suffer from severe asthma. And we currently have 99 outdated and unprofitable nuclear reactors in America that are melting into our water supply.

Here in Colorado, water demands respect. Without heavy snowfalls, we are forced to watch our mountains burn. We have laws concerning how much water you can pump from our rivers and we have ditch walkers who enforce those laws. And yet, we have now given over 15 trillion gallons of our fresh local water to the fracking industry, water that was then mixed with sand and chemicals and injected deep inside wells, creating fissures in our land. Gas companies have now pumped over 250 trillion gallons of these toxic secret chemicals into the veins of Colorado.

It is a short sighted disaster waiting to happen. I am proud to say that Colorado has this country’s strictest methane standards in practice, but it is not enough. President Obama has proposed a 40 percent drop in methane emissions over the next decade, and if we are going to make that happen we need to start holding the fossil fuel industry to higher operational standards.

The disrespect that we allow these companies to show our land in the name of jobs will not stop until we prosecute them and hold their shareholders financially accountable. We must immediately reject all politicians that accept corporate bribes. This is the only way we will advance clean, renewable energy.

I would like to thank the Durango Bernie Sanders Democrats who are allowing me to represent them in Loveland next month.

Justin Johnson

Durango