Last Thursday, Oct. 9, I attended the Oil & Gas Task Force hearing at the Holiday Inn. I arrived a few minutes after 5 p.m. and quickly submitted my name, so that I could address the task force. As the night dragged on, many of the speakers wastefully hogged the two hours of allotted time; and as a result, time ran out before I was called to speak.

There were comments that had nothing to do with investigating any of the potential environmental hazards that the drilling and fracking planned for the Western Slope will bring. One woman used her three minutes to tout her energy company in the obvious hope of generating more business for them. A few others used the limited time to give thanks and praise for the hydrocarbon dollars that had flowed into their charities and cultural endeavors. Even the director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce came out to welcome the oil boys to town.

I was irritated that a public hearing to address serious issues had, for the most part, been highjacked by corporate stool-pigeons, so that this task force would take away nothing of pertinence to the issues – only the memories of job creation and the wonderful things that spreading around of a few petrol dollars can extol. These corporations will extract billions of dollars of hydrocarbons from the Western Slope.

While we’re no longer naive enough to let these people self-regulate, we can’t let them seize regulatory control of the environment in which we live. Local control of drilling and fracking is critical. Sensible laws can be established and must be enforced. Full-disclosure of the contents used in all extraction processes would be a good start. Hazardous emergency plans must also be created, fully funded by the industries and made ready for possible implementation.

A local watch-dog group, funded by the government not the industries, should also be created to respond to any complaints from the public and to mediate all argumentative situations. If the communities were determined to forge ahead with this, the entire population must be protected from potential consequences.

Willson Bloch

Mancos