Power to the people, for the people, by the people?

A year ago, we went through the most expensive and one of the most contentious elections in recent history.  Naturally, a year later, a general political malaise has washed over the land, like the hangover from binge drinking.  Nonetheless, for some governors and state/local officials, today marks their election day.  Also, since the progressive movement at the early part of last century, these elections have included a number of ballot measures covering issues from school district taxes to legalizing marijuana to allowing/restricting same-sex marriage.  This year, the most interesting one for me comes from Colorado where several towns seek to ban fracking in their town.

Fracking, formally known as hydraulic fracturing, requires creating fissures in layers of soft rock, injecting chemicals into the cracks, then pulling out methane that has combined with the rocks.  The process requires significant amounts of water, and results in the stranding of wastewater either at the surface or in the old wells.  As a result, companies can extract vast amounts of previously non-recoverable natural gas, providing economic boon to a state, and keeping market prices low for energy. The ballot initiative process, where each registered voter can weigh in on the process and clearly define a community's desires, seems the perfect vehicle for a citizenry to weigh these potential outcomes and clearly tell the marketplace what they want.

Groups representing the oil and gas industry are devoting relatively large sums of money to combat these small county/township issues.  There is no sense as to whether this nearly 40-to-1 ratio of spending on the issue will determine the outcome, and since it is a small item on the ballot, no polling numbers can give us early insight.  At stake is the concept of whether the people living in a community have the right of self-determination over their quality of life.  Critics of the measures counter that those who own the mineral rights to the natural gas have the right to extract it, but does that right mean the right to life of the citizens of a town is secondary to that?  Colorado Springs has already banned fracking in the short-term, but these initiatives come directly from the citizens.

Industry officials contend that if the citizens of these towns vote down fracking, they will be turning down millions of dollars in revenue and basically saying they do not want the benefits that oil and gas exploration can bring a community.  Maybe these officials should look a little more inward and take such a vote as a sign that the citizens of the community do not want the damage to their city that an industrial practice like fracking brings.  Especially in a state where recent super-floods displaced mining wastewater across the state, perhaps industry could spend more time and money making their practices completely safe, and less time trying to tell the people what they want.