Fracking infrastructure is pictured through playground equipment at the Bella Romero Academy in Greeley on June 24, 2020. (Andy Bosselman for Colorado Newsline)
We’re seeing the impacts all around us: wildfires up and down the Front Range, unhealthy air quality from smoke and pollution, extreme heat forcing us indoors, inflated energy costs due to increased usage of air conditioning — if we’re lucky enough to have access. Climate change is here and now, and we know that many communities across Colorado are suffering from its impacts more than others.
The specifics of oil and gas regulations may seem trivial, but this is where the seeds of systemic environmental racism are sown. After the summer of 2020, the collective conscience of our country began to include the experiences of communities marginalized by racism. Instead of wringing our hands about the inequality borne from racism in our country, we now have an opportunity to act. By demanding that these rules acknowledge and mitigate the direct harms of oil and gas production to the people most affected by them, we move the needle towards justice.
As a family physician, I see the impacts of climate change almost daily in the patients I treat. In Colorado, children experience a greater number of asthma attacks on high ozone days, older adults’ risk and concern for their cardiovascular health increases during extreme heat days, and pregnant people intuitively know that wildfire smoke harms their unborn child. Strong research proves that climate change and pollutants directly compromise our health. This is especially true for our most vulnerable communities: residents that are predominantly BIPOC and low income.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Not only do I treat members of these disproportionately impacted communities, but I also live in one. Here in Larimer County, we are surrounded by oil and gas operations that are polluting our air, destroying our environment and harming our health. We know that oil and gas industry operations that surround us negatively impact the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink. These operations create noise, odor, and direct pollution of the air, water and earth upon which our lives ultimately depend. Colorado defines these as “cumulative impacts,” but the real question is: How do we meaningfully protect public health and our environment from these impacts?
Recognizing the importance of protecting the health of people and our environment, a 2019 Colorado environmental justice law mandated new rules to mitigate the cumulative impacts of oil and gas operations, one of the top drivers of climate-accelerating pollution in Colorado. Historically, federal and other state attempts at meaningful cumulative impact rules have not been successful in terms of passing meaningful protections for communities.
Unfortunately the rules adopted this week by Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the regulatory agency tasked with managing oil and gas operations in the state, also fall short of their goals. This is significant because oil and gas companies intend to increase drilling in and around disproportionately impacted communities in coming years.
The rules passed are a mixed bag — overdue progress on procedural justice through improved public participation processes, but overall a failure to provide critical protections for disproportionately impacted communities that have historically experienced increased health impacts from higher levels of pollution from industry operations and other sources.
I commend the commission for implementing strong new processes to improve procedural justice. Historically, engaging in rulemaking processes and oil and gas permitting determinations has felt out of reach for many of us. The commission will now improve community engagement and outreach earlier in the process, as well as notify local governments of drilling permits. There are also new community liaison positions within the commission that will serve to advocate on behalf of communities.
While Colorado communities should be better able to access participation processes, industry requests clearly took precedence over meaningful public health protections for disproportionately impacted communities. Currently, a 2,000 foot setback — the distance between residential, school, and high occupancy buildings and new oil and gas development — is required, but there are significant off-ramps that undercut this critical protection. Research that indicates the chance of adverse health impacts greatly increases within 2,000 feet of oil and gas operations due to proximity and exposure to toxic and cancer-causing emissions like methane and benzene. While communities will now be notified and consulted with by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment when drilling is planned within 4,000 feet of a home or school in disproportionately impacted communities, the lack of meaningful community protections, like denying drilling permits within a half mile rather than simply consulting communities, directly threatens public health and environmental justice.
While parts of the new cumulative impacts rules are a step in the right direction, Colorado failed to advance comprehensive protections to meaningfully protect public health. It’s long past time we hold the oil and gas industry accountable for the substantial profits they’ve made on the backs of Coloradans at the expense of the safety and public health of our communities. We must demand strong enforcement, and pursue other avenues to ensure our communities are protected from health-harming oil and gas operations near their homes.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.