‹‹ Purplish

The First Fractivist

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<p>Hart Van Denburg/CPR News</p>
<p>A lone pump jack in a field south of Dacono, April 2, 2019.</p>
Photo: Weld County Oil And Gas Near Homes 9 HV
A lone pump jack in a field south of Dacono, April 2, 2019.

Ken Crumb’s story likely sounds familiar. A Front Range resident sees oil and gas drilling in his community. He doesn’t like it and organizes his neighbors to pass a local drilling ban. The thing is, in Ken’s case, this all happened more than 30 years ago. And that community he rallied was Greeley -- not exactly a hotbed of anti-fracking sentiment today.

This episode, we look back at perhaps Colorado’s first fractivist. What Ken did ended up limiting local control of oil and gas development. Now, Democratic lawmakers have passed a bill to tilt the scales back in the other direction.