Below, you’ll find real people telling their stories of living in the shadow of oil and gas development. From air pollution by methane leaks and flares to contaminated groundwater, from farmland destroyed by brine spills to health effects like asthma and cancer—all told by the people experiencing them.
“One of the things my wife last year, had her fight with breast cancer. One of the things that causes breast cancer is pollution. Now to find a direct tie to maybe that spill, or the constant flaring that goes on in the valley there’s every possibility that her cancer was caused by that pollution.”
“We’ve got a company coming in here now that wants to do that…they’re threatening that we either make peace with them, and accept their agreement for surface access to our ranch, or they’ll just sue and condemn their way in.”
“Right now, there’s about 1,500 oil and gas wells on the Fort Berthold Reservation. Many of those are flaring 24-7, which means that you can see gas flares in every direction you look.”
Mike Wireman, a hydrogeologist, has spent the last five years trying to understand what is causing the Pavillion water crisis in relation to oil and gas development.
Keeping the water flowing, a rancher’s fight to limit oil and gas development As hydraulic fracturing threatens aquifers, it puts ranching and other industries at…
Continue reading → Abundant clean water: the west’s most valuable resource
Battlement Mesa Prepares for a Continued Fight for Safer Drilling Practices When Bonnie Smeltzer moved to Battlement Mesa in 2002 at the age of 74,…
Residents impacted by leaking wells look to Encana and the state of Wyoming for a solution. Evelyn stood on her deck overlooking a patchwork of…
Continue reading → Pavillion Community Still Waiting on a Solution for Clean Drinking Water
Residents of Battlement Mesa and Rifle, Colorado, are on the verge of seeing gas companies abandoning their wells and leaving taxpayers to clean up the…
Continue reading → Bonding Crisis Looms in Colorado as Gas Prices Tip Into the Red
Thirty years after faulty gas wells and unlined holding ponds began contaminating groundwater, residents of Pavillion, Wyoming, still can’t drink the water. Sue Spencer, a…
Continue reading → Lax Permitting, Poor Construction Lead to Groundwater Contamination
