LM+Annotation+19

Joshua Zaffos. “Potential Effects of Fracking Worry Front Range Families.” //PostIndependent Citizen Telegraph// 29 Sept. 2013.


 * 1) What three quotes capture the critical import of the text?
 * 2) Frustrated, she began networking with moms in other cities, and last summer, they organized several local grassroots groups into the Colorado chapter of the Mothers Project, a national anti-fracking movement.
 * 3) Although the link between illness and fracking is elusive, a federal study has found that the town’s air quality, including levels of propane, butane and volatile organic compounds from oil and gas drilling, is as much as 10 times worse than that of notoriously polluted Pasadena, Calif. In response, town trustees passed an emergency six-month drilling moratorium last March, and surrounding Boulder County enacted a yearlong moratorium.
 * 4) The energy industry has to keep 500 feet from houses, but new residential development can still build within 150 feet of existing energy infrastructure. Kirkmeyer and other Weld officials are so frustrated with the new oil and gas rules, recent state gun-control laws and renewable-energy goals that they’re leading a secession movement.
 * 5) In Fort Collins, a few months after enacting its fracking ban, the city council failed to renew a more sweeping drilling moratorium after the city’s lone existing operator — exempted from the restrictions — threatened legal action if he couldn’t drill new wells. Irate activists collected 8,000 signatures to force a citywide vote on a five-year fracking moratorium this November. The city of Boulder will likely vote on a three-year moratorium, while the surrounding county recently extended its existing one for another 18 months. Citizens in nearby Lafayette are going even further, pressing for a city charter amendment to outlaw all new oil and gas development. In staunchly conservative Colorado Springs, a grassroots group, Colorado Springs Citizens for Community Rights, has filed its own lawsuit to allow it to bring a fracking ban before voters. Even a statewide fracking ban initiative is afoot.
 * 6) What is the main argument of the text?
 * 7) the text highlights the ongoing tension between concerned community members and industry/industry-influence-government officials. It shows how community members can band together to enact change and force drilling to come to a stop.
 * 8) Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported
 * 9) the Colorado chapter of the Mothers Project was formed by a concerned mother who began networking with other moms. This specific example is used to support the argument.
 * 10) A number of cities and counties are discussed in the article, as local governments have been heavily influenced by community members (and in some cases, forced by community members to stop the drilling).
 * 11) The industry's perspective is also conveyed in this article. Interviews with and statements from the Colorado Oil and Gas Association are included, to show that the industry believes that anti-fracking legislation only fuels the fire of what it calls "unjustified concerns" among community members.
 * 12) Describe the main literatures that the text draws on and contributes to.
 * 13) It mainly contributes to the literature on fracking legislation, highlighting the role of community groups within policy-making.
 * 14) Explain how the argument and evidence in the text supports, challenges, or otherwise relates to the argument or narrative that you imagine developing.
 * 15) Community members are increasingly aware of the dangers posed by fracking, and this text shows that in Colorado, communities have been able to band together and express their concerns. However, would the same be true of a very different (in terms of education level, income, and rural lifestyle) population in West Virginia?
 * 16) List at least three details or examples from the text that you can use to support the argument or narrative that you are developing.
 * 17) The formation of the Colorado chapter of the Mothers Project - is there a West Virginia chapter? A Pennsylvania one? Are these even possibilities?
 * 18) " In the growing bedroom community of Erie, between Denver and Boulder, concerned parents formed Erie Rising in late 2011 after fracking began just a few hundred feet from two elementary schools. Several families claim the activity has increased cases of asthma, migraines, rashes and nosebleeds"
 * 19) See Quote 2 of Question 1