Local Control Colorado Initiative #75

Local control and Ballot Initiative #75, what's it all about? The state fox is now guarding the local chicken coop.  Here is an example.  There is a Colorado law, CRS 37-90-137 (7) (b): "...if the state engineer finds that the proposed dewatering will cause material injury to the vested water rights of others, the applicant may propose, and the permit shall contain, terms and conditions that will prevent such injury. The reduction of hydrostatic pressure level or water level alone does not constitute material injury."

No material injury? The water wells at our ranch and our neighbors went dry after the coal bed methane industry pumped nearly 7 billion gallons of water from the Huerfano County aquifers. There's more. Section (7)(a) allows gas and oil companies to do 16 things with the brackish, oily, chemical-laced water they pump out of the wells.  It allows: "Injection into a properly permitted disposal well; evaporation or percolation in a properly permitted pit; disposal at a properly permitted commercial facility; roadspreading or reuse for enhanced recovery, drilling, well stimulation, well maintenance, pressure control, pump operations, dust control on-site or off-site, pipeline and equipment testing, equipment washing, or fire suppression; discharge into state waters...; or evaporation at a properly permitted centralized exploration and production waste management facility."  In short, it has become legal to spread the polluted fluids on the surface, into the air, and beneath the earth.

The good news, as of last week, is we do have an opportunity to turn it around.  Colorado Community Rights Network (cocrn.org) is sponsoring Initiative #75, a petition that can be signed by registered Colorado voters.  The petition asks: "Shall there be an amendment to the Colorado constitution concerning a right to local self-government, and, in connection therewith, declaring that the people have an inherent right to local self-government in counties and municipalities, including the power to enact laws to establish and protect fundamental rights of individuals, communities, and nature and the power to define or eliminate the rights and powers of corporations or business entities to prevent them from interfering with those fundamental rights; and declaring that such local laws are not subject to preemption by any federal, state, or international laws?"

We need the ability to determine locally that abuses stop happening. Initiative #75 has teeth. In cases that disregard local concerns, it makes possible outright elimination of the right to do business in our communities. Also fine-tuned regulations that reflect local conditions could no longer be overridden by corrupted laws such as CRS 37-90-137.  So when you see someone taking petition signatures in the coming weeks, please consider the opportunity that Initiative #75 brings to protect our well-being, our lands, and our waters.