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Letter: Is the fright of fracking a turkey?

In the Post Independent of Dec. 11 we are informed by Casey Sheahan, CEO of the clothing company Patagonia Inc., that the process of fracking will damage human health and the environment with consequences for hundreds of years. He points to the chemicals used in fracking that are toxic and cancer-causing.

How long has fracking been with us in Colorado? I asked Alan Roberts who was raised while a youngster in Texaco’s Company Town in the Wilson Creek Field north of Meeker. Alan graduated from Meeker High, then Colorado School of Mines and spent a lifetime in the energy industry. He believes well over 75 percent of wells were being fracked when he first went to work in his home state in the early 1960s. Colorado has experienced fracking for over 50 years.

Fracking has been prevalent in Texas on a much greater scale. Fort Worth commissioned a $1 million study completed in 2011 by a Massachusetts firm to document the health effects of natural gas drilling, fracking and production. Hardly any negative effects on its citizens were confirmed in the 320 page report. About 98 percent of emissions were of a low toxicity and the measured air pollution levels did not reach any levels that cause adverse health effects.



Fort Worth, a city of 730,000, contains within its city limits roughly one well pad for each 1,300 citizens. Fort Worth should be Mr. Sheahan’s laboratory to validate the Armageddon of illness and disease fracking has inflicted on their citizens. I believe half a century of history will prove him wrong. Mr. Sheahan should be equally worried about the cancer-causing chemicals in his Thanksgiving dinner.

Floyd Diemoz



Glenwood Springs


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