Here's a good letter from the paper the other day from a self-proclaimed ultra-conservative Republican that is tired of Bush's relentless effort to get a well in the ground everywhere and anywhere he can.
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Energy bill meant more harm to state's ranchers
Re: "Next time, guard our lands," Nov. 26 editorial.
Link to editorial
Thank you, Denver Post, for your editorial. My wife and I are those "cowboy-booted ranchers" you mentioned. Four years ago, we bought our dream ranch of 80 acres in La Plata County with the idea of possibly moving there from neighboring Archuleta County. We have invested a lot of time and money in improvements. And we did not pay much attention to a methane gas well on the corner of the property in which we have no mineral rights. After all, all of our neighbors with 80 acres or more also had methane gas wells. And just across the border, in northern New Mexico, there are thousands of gas wells.
It did not take long for us to learn to distrust the industry and the state and federal government entities that were supposed to protect the lands and us. We have experienced a mineral rights owner moving onto our property with huge rigs without legally notifying us in writing. We have listened to the noise from a well being drilled on our neighbor's property for six months (seven days a week and 24 hours a day for the last two months). From no point on our property can you get away from the noise of drilling, gas compressors and the continual movement of heavy trucks on County Road 328. My wife flatly refuses to drink any well water from the ranch because she believes the groundwater to be polluted.
Unfortunately, the industry by and large cannot be trusted. And it surely does not deserve nor need the billions of dollars the just-decreased energy bill offered. Even though we are ultra-conservative Republicans, to get help to protect our ranch lands we were forced to join an environmental group out of Durango. Sad to say, they were the best help we received.
PAUL LERNO
Pagosa Springs
And a good reply....
Reaping GOP 'harvest'
Re: "Energy bill meant more harm to state's ranchers," Dec. 3 Open Forum.
I got an admittedly diabolical sense of enjoyment out of Paul Lerno's letter, in which he bemoans the gas drilling that is occurring on his ranch near Pagosa Springs. While I commiserate with his predicament and anyone else's whose surface land rights are found subservient to other's mineral rights, I admit to a certain satisfaction when someone self-described as an ultra-conservative Republican starts reaping the harvest he helped create. It makes you wonder what he expected.
It was the vote of neocons like Lerno that put the current president in the White House. This administration came into power with a preconceived agenda: to pursue a cheap energy policy - foreign countries, public and environment be damned. It has put logging, mining and energy lobbyists and executives in charge of the very agencies that supposedly regulate those industries. Thirty-plus years of bipartisan environmental protection is being rolled back at every opportunity, while they hope no one will take notice. Well, I think notice is finally being taken.
RICHARD KAUP
Golden
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Energy bill meant more harm to state's ranchers
Re: "Next time, guard our lands," Nov. 26 editorial.
Link to editorial
Thank you, Denver Post, for your editorial. My wife and I are those "cowboy-booted ranchers" you mentioned. Four years ago, we bought our dream ranch of 80 acres in La Plata County with the idea of possibly moving there from neighboring Archuleta County. We have invested a lot of time and money in improvements. And we did not pay much attention to a methane gas well on the corner of the property in which we have no mineral rights. After all, all of our neighbors with 80 acres or more also had methane gas wells. And just across the border, in northern New Mexico, there are thousands of gas wells.
It did not take long for us to learn to distrust the industry and the state and federal government entities that were supposed to protect the lands and us. We have experienced a mineral rights owner moving onto our property with huge rigs without legally notifying us in writing. We have listened to the noise from a well being drilled on our neighbor's property for six months (seven days a week and 24 hours a day for the last two months). From no point on our property can you get away from the noise of drilling, gas compressors and the continual movement of heavy trucks on County Road 328. My wife flatly refuses to drink any well water from the ranch because she believes the groundwater to be polluted.
Unfortunately, the industry by and large cannot be trusted. And it surely does not deserve nor need the billions of dollars the just-decreased energy bill offered. Even though we are ultra-conservative Republicans, to get help to protect our ranch lands we were forced to join an environmental group out of Durango. Sad to say, they were the best help we received.
PAUL LERNO
Pagosa Springs
And a good reply....
Reaping GOP 'harvest'
Re: "Energy bill meant more harm to state's ranchers," Dec. 3 Open Forum.
I got an admittedly diabolical sense of enjoyment out of Paul Lerno's letter, in which he bemoans the gas drilling that is occurring on his ranch near Pagosa Springs. While I commiserate with his predicament and anyone else's whose surface land rights are found subservient to other's mineral rights, I admit to a certain satisfaction when someone self-described as an ultra-conservative Republican starts reaping the harvest he helped create. It makes you wonder what he expected.
It was the vote of neocons like Lerno that put the current president in the White House. This administration came into power with a preconceived agenda: to pursue a cheap energy policy - foreign countries, public and environment be damned. It has put logging, mining and energy lobbyists and executives in charge of the very agencies that supposedly regulate those industries. Thirty-plus years of bipartisan environmental protection is being rolled back at every opportunity, while they hope no one will take notice. Well, I think notice is finally being taken.
RICHARD KAUP
Golden
