Brock letter: Fracking

Thanks to Gov. Butch Otter and various state and county officials, from the highest office on down, for placing Idaho in egregious peril by inviting the oil and gas industry to transform our beloved state into a sacrifice zone through one of the most devastatingly destructive industrial activities known to mankind. Thanks to them for quickly, quietly creating and implementing legislative pathways that enable this predatory industry to drill and frack under, or adjacent to, our homes, farms, schools, hospitals, churches, rivers and parks, while we taxpayers shoulder the profound environmental, financial, physical and emotional burden this destruction will reap. Thanks for the ignorance and innocence they feign in order to mitigate the fact that they and a few other large land owners here will likely profit mightily by rendering the Treasure Valley and the entire Snake River Basin a monument to their greed. Thanks for the educational experience, the friends and allies I have made, the public speaking and detective skills we have acquired while battling to protect our precious drinking water aquifers, rivers, streams and irrigation channels, air quality, soil, health, mortgages, insurance policies, property and civil rights, and property values. We owe it all to them.

From someone living near oil and gas leased land.

This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Brock letter: Fracking."