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The environment desk at Aspen Public Radio covers issues in the Roaring Fork Valley and throughout the state of Colorado including water use and quality, impact of recreation, population growth and oil and gas development. APR’s Environment Reporter is Elizabeth Stewart-Severy.

Fracking questions considered for Colorado ballot

twitter.com/lynn_bartels

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office is considering initiatives for the November ballot, and a group that wants to see questions about fracking requirements claims the agency is biased.

The group “Yes for Health and Safety Over Fracking” filed a complaint, requesting that the communications director for the Colorado Secretary of State, not be part of counting petition signatures. That’s after she tweeted about receiving “lots of boxes with very few petitions in them.”  

The group claims it has met the required number of signatures to get on the ballot, including over 300 from people in Battlement Mesa. The initiatives ask for local control over fracking and a 2,500 foot setback from occupied buildings.

“It’s the only thing out there that’s a guarantee that we’ll have any required distance other than 500 feet from someone’s backdoor,” said Doug Saxton, co-chair of the group Battlement Concerned Citizens.  

The state has until Sept. 7 to announce what makes the ballot.

Aspen native Elizabeth Stewart-Severy is excited to be making a return to both the Red Brick, where she attended kindergarten, and the field of journalism. She has spent her entire life playing in the mountains and rivers around Aspen, and is thrilled to be reporting about all things environmental in this special place. She attended the University of Colorado with a Boettcher Scholarship, and graduated as the top student from the School of Journalism in 2006. Her lifelong love of hockey lead to a stint working for the Colorado Avalanche, and she still plays in local leagues and coaches the Aspen Junior Hockey U-19 girls.
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