Cheap Seats: Boulder’s Mistake to Cost $1 Billion | The Colorado Observer

Cheap Seats: Boulder’s Mistake to Cost $1 Billion

Cheap Seats: Boulder’s Mistake to Cost $1 Billion

June 16, 2014

By Observer Staff

Legal genius

The ever-so precious denizens of Colorado’s Crackpot County, aka Boulder, seem to have racked up a billion-dollar tab with their precious ban on hydraulic fracturing. While Boulderians were patting themselves on their collective backs for banning the technology that has reinvigorated American industry and slashed carbon emissions, the people who actually have something at stake have been busy.
It turns out that Boulder’s ban will actually cost its residents about $1 billion in lost revenues, according to a new study by the National Association of Royalty Owners.
That’s right, the fracking ban has exposed the back-patting Boulderians to takings claims by owners, who by the way deserve compensation for being denied the use of their private property.
Turns out parts of the Wattenberg Field are in Boulder County and the fracking ban amounts to theft, if not compensated.
Pardon us for guffawing.
Cheap Seats can’t wait to see the looks on the faces of Crackpot County Commissioners, not least of them Elise “I’m a legal genius” Jones, when presented with the bill for the county’s pretentiousness.
It should be a fairly simple matter of Boulder to pay up: Cheap Seats hears there’s a bundle of cash in El Dorado Springs where Sen. Mark Udall lives. Surely he and his wife can spare the cash to help out their neighbors in Crackpot County, they’re so caring about the environment and all.
But here’s the lead-pipe cinch bet: The Boulder bozos won’t want to pay for their mistake so they’ll go looking for a way to foist their bill onto the rest of Colorado while continuing to bankroll efforts to ban fracking elsewhere.
Come to think of it, maybe the “Crackpot County” jab is unfair — to crackpots.