Sean Paige

The ruins of a Colorado home were still smoldering, and two individuals killed inside weren’t even buried yet, when opportunists began looking for ways to exploit the April 17 house explosion in Firestone to further an anti-energy agenda that’s more about vilifying energy producers than protecting public safety.

Days later, investigators linked the explosion to a severed, long-unused gas flow line running close to the home, inadvertently left on for reasons that still aren’t clear. The well from which the line ran is older and sporadically used and was there long before the subdivision. Unprocessed gas in the line, which is odorless in that raw form, apparently seeped into the basement through the sump system, eventually igniting during a home repair project.

That must have come as nightmarish news to anxious Firestone neighbors, wondering if they, too, were at risk. But it was a dream come true for Colorado’s increasingly aggressive anti-energy lobby, which suddenly had fresh fodder for its ongoing efforts to obstruct, curtail and eventually ban energy operations across Colorado. Here at last was the horror story that made their case, which until now was based on flimsy science or flim-flam.

Was this an isolated incident, a fluke accident without wider implications? Or did it expose a larger, statewide danger, sounding a warning against too closely co-locating energy extraction activities and population centers? I think we should withhold judgment on such questions, as well as on what regulatory responses (if any) might be needed, until all the facts are in and all the implications are known. But so politicized and emotionally charged have energy issues become that some began leaping to the latter conclusion even before the preliminary facts were available.

Regulatory overreactions to headline-grabbing tragedies are hard for most politicians to resist because no one wants to be perceived as indifferent to public safety. It’s sometimes easier to just “do something,” even if it’s the wrong thing or the stupid thing, than to stand accused of – gasp! – “doing nothing,” even if that’s sometimes the best thing to do.

When we have a complete picture of what occurred, and why, the Firestone event may raise legitimate new questions about whether oil fields and subdivisions can safely coexist in Colorado’s gas patch. Any sensible person should be open to evidence-based arguments either way. But you can bet the explosion will be shamelessly exploited by the “leave-it-in-the-ground” gang to push another agenda, only ostensibly interested in public safety.

I don’t know anyone, even among fellow libertarians, who doesn’t support rational, scientifically based regulatory safeguards, when a clear need for such safeguards can be established. And who knows? Some new rules might be warranted, as we learn more about the complete chain of circumstances that led to the Firestone tragedy.

I’m not arguing for doing nothing in response to the tragedy – just that we have the patience not to respond in a knee-jerk fashion but to weigh the pros and cons, the costs and benefits, of any future response in light of facts, not fear.

Breeanna Jent

It took the death of two and a severe injury to another before state leaders were prompted to even consider stricter restrictions on oil and gas companies. House Bill 1372 was introduced to Colorado state legislators last week in response to the deadly April 17 home explosion caused by a gas leak in an old, severed underground pipeline still attached to an active Anadarko Petroleum well in Firestone.

The proposed legislation aims to tighten oil and gas regulations, requiring oil and gas operators to electronically notify the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and any local government where the oil and gas operations are located, the location of each flow line, gathering pipeline and transmission pipeline installed, owned or operated.

House Bill 1372 is a step in the right direction, but it was made too late. With the livelihood of human beings at stake, it’s astounding more stringent regulations on oil and gas companies were not sanctioned years ago.

It’s no secret that oil and gas pipelines pose myriad health risks. An average person can concede they are dangerous, even if they are necessary to our standard of living. Anywhere there is an oil and gas pipeline, there is also the possibility that the underground line could leak. Leaking pipes cause severe health risks including contaminated soil and/or water and the risk of explosion, as evidenced by the Firestone incident. These risks have been proved to end in death and injury: That alone should be reason enough to enact further safeguards through stricter regulations.

Relying on oil or gas companies voluntarily to report severed, leaking or otherwise at-risk pipelines is not enough. Oftentimes, big oil and gas companies have only their best interest in mind – at the cost of the well-being of residents who live nearby these lines and wells in question. Relying on resident complaints about at-risk pipelines also falls short of adequately addressing the problem; residents can only complain about leaking pipelines if they know about them. While residents can and should be diligent in understanding the utilities that service their home, a regular citizen should not be expected to know about the safety status of underground lines.

The burden of ensuring a pipeline’s safety is and should remain the duty of the gas and oil companies who own the lines and wells. Furthermore, it is the responsibility of the local or state governments to ensure oil and gas companies operating within their jurisdictions do so in a safe and responsible manner.

Increased inspections of each of Colorado’s tens of thousands of active and inactive pipelines, detailed individual pipeline maps, and regular reports should be part of the required regulations imposed on these companies – and it should all be made easily accessible to the public. This is the only way to ensure these lines remain safe and the companies who own and operate them are ultimately responsible for the risks posed to local citizens who live nearby.

Informed consent should always be the rule, not the exception. The cost to operate oil and gas pipelines should never be someone’s life.

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Sean Paige is a former member of the Colorado Springs City Council and Colorado Springs Utilities board of directors. Breeanna Jent is a freelance reporter in Colorado Springs who was previously a reporter and assistant editor at City News Group in San Bernardino, Calif.

Breeanna Jent