White House Push For Oil, Gas Turning A Red State Purple

[DesertRat]

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- The Bush administration's aggressive drive to promote oil and gas drilling on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains has sparked growing anger here among traditional Republican constituents who say that the stepped-up push for energy development is sullying some of the country's most majestic landscape.

The emerging backlash from ranchers and sportsmen, which is occurring despite an economic boom driven by drilling, is threatening GOP primacy in at least one corner of what has been a solidly Republican West. Long the most reliably conservative expanse of a state that has gone red in six of the past seven presidential contests, Colorado's western third shows evidence of the "purpling" that has made Colorado look increasingly like a swing state.

Support from the western slope was seen as pivotal in the elections of Democrats Bill Ritter as governor last year and Sen. Ken Salazar in 2004, the same year Salazar's older brother, Rep. John Salazar, was elected to Congress from a western Colorado district that had given 66 percent of its vote to the Republican candidate four years earlier. All three Democrats found support in GOP enclaves while calling for "balance" in energy extraction.

"I can only speak for myself and I'm a registered Republican, but last year I voted a straight Democratic ticket. First time in my life," said Bob Elderkin, 68, who heads the town of Rifle's chapter of the Colorado Mule Deer Association, a hunting group that has made common cause with environmentalists against drilling. "The Republicans have kind of lost touch with reality."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091500893.html?hpid=topnews

[TwilightGardener]

1. They are really ruining Colorado, and there is not a damn thing

property owners can do if some gas company wants to drill on your land. They displace and pump out nasty water to get at the coal-bed methane, if I recall correctly, and then put this nasty water into ponds. The land is ruined, and the propety owner gets nothing. Colorado has some of the screwiest water and mineral rights laws of any state, I think, which is why this is going on there.

[DesertRat]

3. This paragraph really illustrates what is going on

"You do not drill on your freaking watershed!" said Frank Lamm, 62, who squared off against energy companies after sulfurous odors from the nearby Black Mountain oil field fluids disposal site began drifting into his trailer home. Evenings now find him watching TV from behind a dust mask, his front door sealed with duct tape. Rainwater from his roof runs clear into plastic buckets, then turns a disquieting red."

[eleny]

4. That's the paragraph that stunned me

I hope the conservative western slope wakes up before it's too late and they ruin the state completely.

The Dems did quite well in the last election. We now have a Dem governor and a Dem majority in the state house, albeit a fragile lead. But with the encroachment of the energy companies, we might be able to broaden our lead. And Angie Pachone almost unseated Marilyn Musgrave in the ultra conservative farming, eastern portion of the state.

[DesertRat]

5. I love Colorado and want it preserved

I hope that the Dems can stop this drilling before it's late for our future generations.

[XOKCowboy]

9. Oh I hope that we can get rid of Musgrave...

She is Colorado's Inhofe. Even though John Salazar is a very "moderate" Dem he is one of the few Dems elected in that district in a long, long time.

There is hope for our state. We've just got to keep fighting.

[eleny]

11. I thought that I read about Angie wanting to run again

She should be a household name by now. But northeastern Colorado is so dyed in the wool red. Keeping the hope alive!

[Toots]

2. "The Republicans have kind of lost touch with reality."

Ya think? Never thought I would ever hear the truth spoken so plainly by a Republican....

[XOKCowboy]

6. Drive west on I-70 from Glenwood Springs into Utah - Drilling Rigs Everywhere

It's hard not to feel a little shadenfreude for those ranchers and sportsmen's groups. They were hardcore Republicans until it literally came into their back yards. I guess those slogans like "Clear Skies" and "responsible use" are starting to ring pretty hollow. I hope that they feel like the fools that they are.

At the behest of the White House, which made accelerated oil and gas leasing the top priority of the Bureau of Land Management, the gas industry has in the past five years transformed huge tracts of an iconic Western landscape into something resembling industrial zones. As Coloradoans struggle to adjust to the changes -- a steady flow of heavy rigs on back roads, powerful odors from evaporation ponds and a small army of roughnecks gobbling methamphetamine to work 12-hour shifts -- disquiet grows over federal plans to open the spigot wider yet.

The state has 32,000 active gas and oil wells, and plans call for at least 40,000 more in the next decade. A new Wilderness Society forecast predicts 125,000 new wells across the region.

"They are creating problems by the magnitude," said Joan Savage, who welcomed the 146 gas wells on her family's 6,000-acre ranch but shakes her head at federal plans to drill atop the majestic Roan Plateau, which towers over it.

"They just want the money," Savage said. " 'Show me the money.' ''

WELCOME TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY Ms. Savage! We need you (and all of your friends) 2008 to take Colorado from purple to bright blue!

For info on the Roan Plateau look here: http://www.saveroanplateau.org/

[XOKCowboy]

7. An aerial view of drilling sites along I-70

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=39.437904,-108.033769&spn=0.10,0.10

Center the map half way between Parachute and Rifle then switch to the satellite view and start to zoom in. See all of the roads and little squares? Zoom in on them. About half are drilling rigs (the rest are wells or storage areas). 10 yrs ago the only blight on the landscape was Battlement Mesa (an "exclusive" resort community outside Parachute that sprouted micromansions all over the hillsides.

Oh and btw that's also the Colorado River flowing alongside I-70 right through the middle of all of the drilling. The same Colorado River that Las Vegans and southern California depends on for it's water.

When Clinton was president and oil was cheap it wasn't economically feasible to drill these wells. This is shale oil country and it's expensive to extract the oil and gas. Now that Bush and his Saudi buddies have oil hitting $80 a barrel, it's balls to the wall drilling.

[DesertRat]

8. Wow, that's worse than I thought...

[DavidDvorkin]

10. It's silly to call Colorado reliably red

Yes, regarding presidential elections. But the state offices have almost always been a mixed bag. Colorado has been purple for much of its history.

[XOKCowboy]

12. Denver and Boulder, being the major population center have been blue...

but the article was about the far western slope which has been reliably red forever.

It's a good sign that even diehard Repuplicans over there are being impacted enough by Shrub's policies to make them rethink their political affiliation, if even for a short time.