NYT: Drilling in West Pits Republican Policy Against Republican Base

[Pirate Smile]

A natural gas compression station and drilling rig below the Roan Plateau in Colorado. Some residents are fighting the drilling leases.

RIFLE, Colo., June 15 - As a sometime carpenter, Keith Goddard has all the work he can handle in this place where new houses rise with the sun and a gas well is poked into the ground just about every other day.

But Mr. Goddard is worried sick. From his backyard here on Colorado's West Slope, he can see the little bit of unspoiled paradise left in this valley, the high, green top of the Roan Plateau. That piece of public land is where he goes to make his living in the fall, as a hunting guide. Energy companies want to drill on it.

"It's crazy what's going on," said Mr. Goddard, who has a face deeply reddened by the mountain sun.

Mr. Goddard, who says he is a political independent, has organized hunters to protest government plans for introducing gas wells into grazing areas for deer and elk. "I'm not against oil and gas development," he said, "but when you put wells in every 20 acres, that means you're no longer managing public lands for the public anymore."


Linn Blancett, a rancher, standing by a patch of ground he said had been contaminated by oil. Mr. Blancett and his wife have filed suit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/national/22drilling.html?

[donco6]

1. This is a huge issue in Colorado.

A RED state, mind you.

For those who don't know, the EASTERN half of Colorado is flat plains (think Kansas, only flatter).

The Western Slope is where the oil/gas/oil shale etc. is found.

This issue is beginning to pit the Western Slope against the Eastern Plains. Western Slope has more population. This could actually turn Colorado BLUE.

The critical issue is that in Colorado, people can purchase surface land, but the drilling rights can be held by oil/gas developers. So a homeowner can find herself facing an oil rig drilling on her property basically anytime. It's happening in communities like Delta and Montrose. Obviously, this has been leading to "bad feelings" between property owners and the oil industry types.

With Salazars in office (two brothers - one a US senator, the other a state senator), this could really work to our favor.

The Bushies are in a real quandary here.

[kskiska]

2. Not in my back yard

(snip)

"The word from Washington is drill, drill, drill, and now they've basically destroyed our ranch," said Tweeti Blancett, a coordinator for George Bush's presidential campaign in San Juan County, N.M. "We've been in a firestorm down here. A lot of Republicans are upset."

The 32,000 acres of public land that Ms. Blancett and her husband, Linn, have long used for grazing cattle is now riddled with gas wells and pipelines. Petroleum byproducts have poisoned the water, she said, killing animals and causing the fertility rate to plummet.

[mitchtv]

3. wyoming is getting it too

tho I am sad to see our beautiful country being ravaged, there is a big fat hearty "I told you so" screaming to burst forth.

[mitchtv]

5. ranchers on public land

are not much better. They think that they can sterilize the land and kill native grazers off for their profit at bargain basement leases.
More republicans living on Govt largesse pointing at welfare queens, just like farmers. everyone else is the grifter.

[fishnfla]

4. The drilling methods and the side effects, which are not mentioned

in the article, are really harsh on the environment, especially the grass and the water the ranchers need. They are basically raping, and permantly ruining, the landscape.

They are wrong to blame the shrub though. Cheney and the oil lobbyists wrote this in secret while shrub was choking on a pretzel.

[leesa]

6. They are getting what they deserve. You did it, assholes.

[Pirate Smile]

7. It isn't isolated to Republicans.

[Straight Shooter]

8. Oh, my, look at that purty gas compression station.

Who needs to look at mountains and plateaus when you can feast your eyes on a gas compression station.

I hate to say it, but we're all complicit to a degree in this drilling orgy. As much as we try to fight back and find alternative sources, in the meantime we're stuck in the energy machine like everyone else. It's as if everything has been arranged to conspire against our best interests and we're overwhelmed with what needs to be done to turn this thing around.

I hope these Republicans are beginning to understand that greed and beauty rarely co-exist in the natural environment.