Colorado voters will have a chance to decide in November whether to block drilling in most of one of America’s largest oil and gas producing states.
The Colorado secretary of state’s office said Wednesday that opponents of oil and natural gas fracking had obtained sufficient signatures to put the issue on the November ballot.
The measure would ban drilling within 2,500 feet of homes, schools, and “vulnerable areas” such as playgrounds. Currently, Colorado requires oil and gas wells to be located at least 500 feet from buildings and 350 feet from recreation areas.
A state analysis shows that if the measure passed, it would block new oil and gas wells on 85 percent of nonfederal land in the state. Colorado is America’s fifth-largest gas-producing and seventh-largest oil-producing state.
Anti-fracking activists in the state have tried since 2014 to get a measure like this on the ballot, but have been unsuccessful until now.
The Colorado Supreme Court in 2016 ruled against several local governments taking actions to ban fracking, saying the state has authority on the matter.
Oil and gas producers flooded Colorado during the fracking boom of the early 2000s, bringing jobs to the state, and boosting local and state tax revenue. Both of Colorado’s candidates for governor, Republican Walker Stapleton and Democrat Jared Polis, have spoken out in recent weeks against the anti-fracking ballot measure, worried about the economic impact.
But opponents say wells are increasingly encroaching on populated areas. They question the safety of oil and gas operations, noting frequent explosions, including a fatal one last year that killed two men and destroyed a home, blamed on a leaky well that wasn’t capped properly.
