At the Jan. 10 meeting of the Broomfield City Council, Extraction Oil & Gas gave a presentation about their proposed plans for a hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operation in Broomfield. While the presenters were professional and well-spoken, much of the information the shared was misleading and does not stand up to scrutiny. Here are just a few of many examples:

1. Extraction said there has been “no widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources along the Front Range.” Extraction was parroting misleading language from a June 2015 preliminary EPA report, language that was conspicuously removed from the EPA’s final report issued in December 2016. Extraction did qualify their statement by including “along the Front Range.” While there may not have been major impacts on water sources in our immediate geographic location, there are instances of fracking contaminating drinking water in other places, notably the three critical cases included in the EPA’s recently issued final report.

2. Extraction touted the fact that they plan to consolidate drilling operations around Broomfield, reducing well-sites from 12 to four. What they failed to explain is that by having fewer well sites, the sites themselves must be larger in scale to accommodate the 139 planned wells. It’s reasonable to conclude that the concentration of air contaminants will be greater in these areas based on the larger number of wells on each site. As they say, poison is often in the dose.

3. Extraction also assured homeowners that fracking will not have a serious impact on their home values, which seemed like good news for the people who plan to move should Extraction’s proposal move forward. Unfortunately, Extraction was relying on information from a study of home prices in an area that has a very different housing market when compared to Broomfield. Local realtors vocally disagreed with Extraction’s home value information.

Read more at the Broomfield Enterprise