Fracking for natural gas is safe?

hermitwin

I just realised that there is a big debate about this.
What are your opinions?

Barra

Well all right then! I'd like to challenge the idea that society ( I.e. capitalists) have the right to commodify certain natural resources at the expense of others. In this case, natural gas has a value on the world market, but water is considered to be "free". So in a world where many face shortages of water, even here in North America, where it is needed to grow food, resource extractors feel they have the right to squander millions of gallons of water a day to pump it down in to the earth at high pressure in order to smash rock so that they can extract gas. And they expect to access all this water for free? Yes they do. Because fuel can be sold to foreign markets. And what, I ask you, is this going to do to the water table in the rich and interdependent ecosystem of northern Canada? Our First Nations people in that area live very close to the land. They, and the animal population,drink the water. They navigate on the water, the water nourishes the soil and sustains all who live in it and on it. What about the down stream effects that result from major water depletion? We simply don't know. Yet these corporate jackasses, with the Canadian (my) government playing a complicent partner, are promoting this as a good idea.

So yes. Sorry about ranting, but it needs to be said, and people need to know. I'm glad that this is an international forum. please tell your friends about this assault on the earth.

Florian

A debate? The answer seems very clear, partly for the reasons Barra gives. But our thirst for energy and wealth will always trump any concerns about the natural environment. I see no hope for it without the collapse of the global economy. There are some optimistic signs...

Cinorjer

"Fracking" is so disruptive to the ground that it has even caused earthquakes, and that's not disputed. It uses millions of gallons of an increasingly scarce vital resource called water to extract, sometimes in areas already suffering under severe water shortage. The massive damage to the aqua bearing layers of rock underground cause widespread contamination of the ground water, and that also is fact, not liberal hype.

So no, fracking is in no way, shape or form safe for people or the environment. However, it is probably inevitable as a part of the process that always happens as a population outgrows its available resources. First the easiest to access and most desirable resource is mined or fished or hunted. When that is gone, then we move to other resources that have a greater cost in environmental or personal damage. And so on. And as we move down the line, we can even temporarily improve our standard of living as the resource stream begins gushing again. But eventually even the trash fish are gone, the meat factories can't keep up with the demand and there's no crops to feed them anyway, there's no more dirty coal or natural gas to be fracked, and the population finally crashes.

And since people have an infinite capacity to ignore inconvenient facts and justify their own behavior, about all we can hope for is that we slow the process down a bit.

federica

('Fracking' sounds like one of those made-up 'swear-words' you hear on mid-budget sci-fi programmes.....)

jll

I went to youtube n searched for fracking.
most of the videos say it is safe.

looks like the oil giants are determined
to convince the public that it is safe.

how do these company executives sleep at night?

person

federica said:

('Fracking' sounds like one of those made-up 'swear-words' you hear on mid-budget sci-fi programmes.....)

In fact it is the word they used on Battlestar Gallactica. :mullet:

This is how safe it is. Especially good for toasting marshmallows

karasti

My in-laws live just on the edge of the ND oil boom. Looks like Kuwait. They are mostly after oil but using fracking in many of the areas, too. But one of the side products of oil is natural gas, which they are wasting, too. They just let it burn in oil wells, just like in the middle east. They show up now on satellite photos. Aside from all the things already mentioned, it wreaks havoc on the areas that these mines go into. Throngs of people flock there for jobs and with it, bring a huge increase in crime, traffic, accidents, medical needs and so on. The housing has gone up 5x and landlords have let contracts run out so that they can rent to the higher paying oil workers. So people who have lived there their entire lives cannot find housing because they have been run out by the oil companies. It's a mess.

I absolutely don't support fracking, and even mining in general. Just another way huge, huge companies get filthy rich while creating generations-long consequences for other people with no pause. My community is going through this right now with sulfide mining for precious metals. Our area is sitting on one of the biggest deposits in the world and there are no houses or anything there. Because it's on the edge of a federally protected area, much of which is fed by one larger river that winds through the whole area and into Canada, and the mining will take place right on the river, and if (when) the water is contaminated it'll spread to many of the lakes. The company has exactly zero history in the whole world of not contaminating the water supply, not just that but they use huge, huge amounts of fresh water. Ridiculous.

But, on the flip side. Every one of us who dislikes it, how many of us have given up our cars? tv? cell phones? computers? Want to give up natural gas for heat in favor of solar? The parts for that all require mining, too. It's being stuck between a rock and a hard place, basically. Because we all use and mostly need a lot of these things that mining produces. So, we're immediately to blame for the mining because of our drive and hunger for all these items. I try to be more responsible with it, but the fact is so few of us that care make little impact right now when everyone else wants 3 new cell phones every year. I got involved in a fresh water coalition locally to help spread information about the other side of our local mining debate. But it's a huge, huge uphill battle. The mines here, even with their high risks, have almost 90% of the public's support.

JohnG

Fracking has caused more harm to the ground, just as the strip mines did, and potentially worse! In the past several months there have been compressor building explosions, as well as other dangerous events. The boom that was promised to the world and the people will soon be known as the boon of the old anthracite coal area; misery, pain, suffering, and the wealth increase of but a few; who do not live here, but make the profit.

vinlyn

You guys should come out here to Colorado. It's a HOT topic! Especially on the local forum where a thread has been going back and forth for months.

Cinorjer

jll said:

I went to youtube n searched for fracking.
most of the videos say it is safe.

looks like the oil giants are determined
to convince the public that it is safe.

how do these company executives sleep at night?

They convince themselves that they are providing a needed product, that the risks are no greater than any other mining as they turn out the light in their million dollar mansion or townhouse. And, they justify it by telling themselves that their job is take care of the shareholders, not the moochers living on welfare in the town where the water started burning out of the faucet. They aren't doing anything illegal, after all. They have an army of lawyers and pet congressmen who make sure it's legal.

Dakini

Fracking is going to start in southern NM soon. I thought the main concern was damage to the underground water supply. NM needs all the water it can get, it's very dry here, and it's in a multi=year drought cycle.

lamaramadingdong

Kuwait on the Prairie

Cinorjer

Dakini said:

Fracking is going to start in southern NM soon. I thought the main concern was damage to the underground water supply. NM needs all the water it can get, it's very dry here, and it's in a multi=year drought cycle.

People are starting to wake up to how much water the process gobbles up, water that is permanently contaminated and has to be left underground or stored in huge tanks and can't even be recycled. Do a quick google and you'll see outside experts estimate each well consumes about 5 million gallons of water, and that is water that can't be allowed to re-enter the water cycle or be cleaned again, unlike say a golf course or even a power plant.

That's 5 million each well. How many wells are slated to go into your drought strikened land?

jll

It is so sad that people are being lied to
so that big companies can make huge profits.
who cares if the water is poisoned?
who cares if future generations dont have clean water?

karasti

There are people who honestly don't care. I can't tell you how many times I have heard "if the choice is water or my career, give me the money. We can worry about the long-term environmental consequences later." Even our local paper has editorials to that effect. That the only thing that matters is jobs right now. Nevermind that we have a large supply of the world's available fresh water in our general area. It's so frustrating. I don't blame people for wanting good jobs. So many people here drive 60-90 miles one way just to work, and many of them work 12 hour shifts, so they having no time with their kids as they grow up and stuff. My dad did the same thing. I wish there were easy answers. If I could give up all this stuff that makes mining necessary and have it make a different, I'd do it in a heart beat. Well at least most of it. We can't do without a car here though.

person

In regards to the mining, within 5 years a company plans to start prospecting asteroids for minerals and they hope to begin actual mining in a decade. Even if it does pan out it seems like we wouldn't be able to quit mining the earth for a couple decades, but there is some long term hope that we can quit that. And an influx of rarer materials could potentially make less polluting energy technologies much more affordable.

http://news.discovery.com/space/asteroids-meteors-meteorites/could-asteroid-mining-drive-21st-century-space-industry-130204.htm

vinlyn

jll said:

It is so sad that people are being lied to
so that big companies can make huge profits.
who cares if the water is poisoned?
who cares if future generations dont have clean water?

I think are 4 groups of people here.

Group 1 is big business and its supporters. They put out there position as fact.

Group 2 buys into the position of big business, realizes there are risks, but believes that the risks are controllable and are balanced out by the need we have for energy. Whether they really believe the risks are controllable is questionable.

Group 3 is very wary, feels there are risks, but looks the other way because (as Karasti points out) they don't really care because it isn't directly affecting them and they benefit from the process.

Group 4 are (or are related to) the environmentalists, who put out their positions as fact, and are on the opposite end of the spectrum from big business.

Do you know which group I trust the most? None of them. Every one of those groups either lies to the public or lies to themselves. None of those groups takes a balanced position, but rather goes to extremes.

I am reminded very much of the factory workers back in my home town -- including several relatives of mine -- who worked at a then leading company that produced gaskets and seals in the 1940s and 1950s. Depending on which department they worked in, a lot of them were coughing and hacking, and they'd talk about the graphite (and other substances) in the air in the manufacturing divisions. They'd laugh and say things like, "Those of us down in the mill and calender (whatever that meant) will probably die from all that stuff in the air." So they knew...but they ignored what they knew. And sure enough, there were way too many cases of emphysema and lung cancer among those guys.

The fact that big business lies to the American people is almost irrelevant in this type of case. Because the American people know. In fact, for every article in the media about how we will benefit from fracking, there are two or three articles about the great risks of fracking. If the American people are being fooled about the issue, it's because we allow ourselves to be fooled about the issue.

karasti

I have to agree, for the most part anyhow. Most people do know, and they just flat out don't care, or just look the other way. What comes is what will come. But as much as I might wish it were possible, just saying that we cannot mine for anything just is not realistic. So there has to be a balance. We do a better job than a lot of countries in regulating environmental controls. But the problem is, most of the time, it's up to the companies to regulate themselves with regards to the laws. It's up to them to report oil spills and to clean them up. They only report, on average, about 30% of spills that happen. BP and the rest of them told us that the oil dispersants they used in the Gulf were safe. Now it turns out, they are not, and they are killing a ton of the sea life and algae, and when we destroy the algae it destroys so much from the bottom up. But, what do we do about it? As with so many other topics that have come up here, how do the few that care even begin to fit big oil, or any of the other companies with BILLIONS of dollars to throw around? I don't think we can. The metals company that set up shop here, is winning over the locals like crazy by tossing a few dollars to the community. Sponsor a Little League team, donate to the food shelf, and so on. In most of the eyes of the locals, the big money can do no wrong.

person

People tend to have a hard time sacrificing immediate obvious gains for longer term more uncertain ones. I'm sure there's a biological mechanism behind this but in general the emotional side of us wants the immediate reward and it takes the rational side of our brains to overcome that. So much of the consumer society is driven to push our emotional buttons that it probably becomes most peoples default way of dealing with the world.

lamaramadingdong

What would our county/world look like if we planned based on what was best for those 5, 10 or 20 generations from now rather than planning based on what benefits me, right now?

zombiegirl

karasti said:

But, on the flip side. Every one of us who dislikes it, how many of us have given up our cars? tv? cell phones? computers? Want to give up natural gas for heat in favor of solar?

This is really the crux of it for me. If you watch the documentary Gasland (although apparently, some of the things in it were fabricated), they interview some executive that simply says something to the effect of, "It's not perfect, but reducing dependency on foreign energy is also important."

Demand is up and that is what fuels these types of projects. I can't even get my friends to stop shopping at Walmart, despite their horrible business practices and the fact that they actually demand that companies move their operations overseas.
I was just visiting my family up in northern Michigan where they installed a bunch of wind turbines and my grandmother told me about how people fought tooth and nail to oppose these 'monstrosities'... typically based on misinformation or just simply because people don't like the look of them.

It's a real double edged sword for me personally. I think the best thing we can do is to try and support stringent laws that the companies must adhere to in terms of environmental safety.

Here is an interview titled Better Fracking from NPR that really does a great job of explaining all of the processes and describing what they are trying to do to make it better. (If anyone is interested and has 45 mins to spare, that is.)

zombiegirl

Sorry for the double post, but I really just want to stress how awesome the NPR article I linked in the above post is. (I hadn't finished it by the time I'd posted the above comment.) But it really covers probably any questions anyone could have bout fracking and I really encourage everyone to give it a listen.

jll

against the might of big oil, some people are fighting
back to get the truth out.

jll

1st hand account of people who experienced fracking.

Dakini

Unless you live in a rural area, it's not so hard to get around on foot, bicycle, and public transport. I did it all my life until a few years ago, when I moved to a semi-rural area. I got rid of my TV a few years ago, too. (Not sure what that has to do with oil and gas consumption, though. TV's don't use much electricity, do they?) We can be mindful of consuming petroleum products (plastics). More public utilities are including alternative energy sources, so we can subscribe to those. We can lobby our local and state officials to require more energy-efficient office and school buildings (not difficult to do), and buildings that run at least in part on solar panels (there have been such office buildings around for a few decades). Decreasing dependence on fossil fuels really is do-able, the only thing lacking is the political will to implement the necessary changes. http://www.rmi.org/Home

If we want a better world, and a sustainable, healthy, livable world in the future, we have to accept relatively minor (imo) sacrifices, like the "convenience" of a car. How convenient is it, anyway, if it results in wars (!!) and trashing the planet?

The root of the intransigence on these issues, I think, isn't our individual commitment so much as it is the control that corporations have over politics and economics.

Jeffrey

Maybe if everyone sane gave a small amount of their income we could lobby? I think just on facebook my attention came to this issue and then I read an article of National Geographic in my doctor's waiting room.

On FB I find a balancing point between talking about issues but not watching 'chainletter-mail' where you have to refer 5 people to your cause. And that would multiply to a lot of letters getting wrote, I guess?? But money talks and you know the rest. Maybe I'll join the chain-causes people and refer to 5 other people next issue that comes up. Because? I realize even if it is awkward socially there are a lot of good causes.

hermitwin

most people still want to keep their cars.
however, our cars are extremely inefficient.
there is insufficient demand for efficient cars.
the problem is education n information.

at the moment, big corporations are winning the information
'war'.

Dakini said:

Unless you live in a rural area, it's not so hard to get around on foot, bicycle, and public transport. I did it all my life until a few years ago, when I moved to a semi-rural area. I got rid of my TV a few years ago, too. (Not sure what that has to do with oil and gas consumption, though. TV's don't use much electricity, do they?) We can be mindful of consuming petroleum products (plastics). More public utilities are including alternative energy sources, so we can subscribe to those. We can lobby our local and state officials to require more energy-efficient office and school buildings (not difficult to do), and buildings that run at least in part on solar panels (there have been such office buildings around for a few decades). Decreasing dependence on fossil fuels really is do-able, the only thing lacking is the political will to implement the necessary changes. http://www.rmi.org/Home

If we want a better world, and a sustainable, healthy, livable world in the future, we have to accept relatively minor (imo) sacrifices, like the "convenience" of a car. How convenient is it, anyway, if it results in wars (!!) and trashing the planet?

The root of the intransigence on these issues, I think, isn't our individual commitment so much as it is the control that corporations have over politics and economics.

karasti

I'd love to upgrade our vehicles to be more planet-friendly but we have a hard time finding something that #1 will fit our 5 person family comfortably and #2 is affordable. We have to have 2 vehicles right now, and we live in a rural area. We have no public transportation to speak of and walking/biking is not an option for 7-8 months a year. We certainly don't need tv or computers, but honestly, I don't play the violin well enough to entertain our family for hours every night in the winter, LOL. I do do a lot of research when we purchase any items, trying to find the more planet-friendly, and people-friendly items that I can. I am still using a cell phone that is 7 years old(while having a cell is optional, it's something hard to consider giving it up when you have a kid who lives with a life threatening medical condition). But, we try to make differences in areas we can. I'd love to convert to at least partial-solar energy because we have an ideal full southern exposure. But the cost is beyond our ability, so we're stuck with using fuel oil to heat the house.

And I do write our politicians, but the lobby for good paying, benefited jobs, is very heavy here. When you have people who are 50-60-70 and working 3 or 4 jobs as cashiers and clerks around town just to pay the mortgage, it's hard to fit against companies who will bring better jobs. It's extremely divisive and that part for sure I find sad. I don't want people to suffer without full time, year round jobs. But I don't want everyone to suffer when it comes to trusting a company that has had 0% success in not contaminating water, either. It came up over dinner yesterday at my mom's birthday, and I just don't even discuss it. It gets too ugly, too fast. My stepsister is best friends with the daughter of a man who is fighting the mining here, and she (stepsister) has a hard time with that because her (stepsister) family hates her best friends family for what they are doing. Sigh. It's just ugly. I wish there were easier answers.

person

Just watched the movie Promised Land. It was an ok movie but did a really good job of laying out in an even handed way the need for money and industry in rural America vs. the destruction of the land.

Beej

fracking is completely UNsafe, it is destroying communities, and it is marginally cheaper than other fossil fuels. my experience with this topic is intiment, but all i care to cite is that a close friend of mine lives in a rural Pennsylvania community that the fracking industry has all but taken over, politically as well as functionally. i have had my hands in this debate for a while, and my chief objection is the potential harmful effects that this can have on our drinking water, and our effected watershed areas. this is energy greed at its highest and should be stopped immediately.

Dakini

Don't hold back, TheBeejAbides, tell us more!

karasti

These processes use SO much water. It's interesting to think what that means when you read what the CEO of nestle said about how he thinks water should be privatized, that water is not something people have a right to. Scary to think of the implications of privatizing the world water supply to companies like nestle so they can do business with the mining industries.

Dakini

karasti said:

These processes use SO much water. It's interesting to think what that means when you read what the CEO of nestle said about how he thinks water should be privatized, that water is not something people have a right to. Scary to think of the implications of privatizing the world water supply to companies like nestle so they can do business with the mining industries.

Absolutely! The privatization of the entire water supply, including rain water, didn't work out in Bolivia. Bechtel, the US company that bought the rights to the water supply was run out of the country by mass protests. They'd made it illegal for people to catch the rainwater running off their roofs, and Bolivia being a very poor country, most people couldn't afford to pay what Bechtel was charging for water.

We can also see from the example of Peabody Coal on the Navajo/Hopi reservations, that private companies are not at all good stewards of water. They use the highest quality water to slurry coal, leaving unhealthy aquifers for potable use. They're using all the water they can for as long as it lasts to slurry coal, then they'll leave the reservations literally high and dry when the pure water runs out.

person

I too worry about the effects of privatizing water on the poor. However, what effect would a proper valuation of clean water mean to this issue of fracking. How economically viable would fracking be if the companies had to pay double, 5 times, 10 times or more for the fresh water they use and spoil.

There is a notion called tragedy of the commons where if a resource is open to access then anyone can use whatever they want and when many do this and no one is responsible for maintaining the resource it becomes depleted.

IMO better public regulation of our water resources would be the better way to go, but government is clearly failing us on this issue at present. For all its downsides privatization of water would probably help in regards to fracking.

Jason

hermitwin said:

I just realised that there is a big debate about this.
What are your opinions?

My opinion is that the dangers of fracking outweigh the benefits. Not only do I think we need to be vigourously pursuing green, renewable sources of energy and moving away from coal, oil, etc. to help reduce our environmental impact, there have already been a number of cases where fracking for oil and natural gas has contributed to ground water contamination, and the use of the materials extracted via fracking directly contributes to increased atmospheric CO2 levels and climate change.

how

A complete explanation for what Fracking is can be found on the remake of Battlestar Galactica.

karasti

@person actually, the companies pay far more for their water than a household does for theirs.

@Dakini in some places in the US, it is illegal (I think city ordinance but I could be wrong, I'll have to double check) to have rain barrels.
This article touches on it:
http://www.naturalnews.com/029286_rainwater_collection_water.html

Dakini

Oh, thanks, @karasti! I remember discussing this with friends in Colorado, now that you post this link. They said that CO has been so dry, that it's important to allow the rainwater to soak into the ground (or enter the rivers), to replenish aquifers and ensure there's enough surface water for irrigation. New Mexico is encouraging water catchment, but CO has taken the opposite position; that water catchment only exacerbates the problem. It means there would be less water available to people who depend on wells.

I think this issue is different from when water was privatized in Bolivia, and someone was making a lot of money by selling it for profit. In the arid West, it's about how best to ensure a water supply for agriculture and personal use in times of drought. I don't know why Washington State is against water catchment, though. I haven't read the whole article yet. Maybe it's more relevant to the dry eastern part of the state.

karasti

A lot of the problem though is just humans. Yes, people with wells need water, of course. But SO much water goes to irrigating farmland in areas we shouldn't even have farmland, to water lawns in areas there shouldn't be grassy lawns, to supply industry and mining and so on in areas that have such limited water supply just by the nature of their climate. It was an area that 150 years ago, we didn't have any foresight into, and now we are wishing we did. We thought turning desert areas into green areas was a good thing. Turns out, mother nature knows better which areas should be desert and which shouldn't, lol. For example. Boulder, CO is high desert terrain. Being there and looking at the lush yards, you'd hardly know that isn't what the city would look like if they didn't use so much water to maintain it. Just overall, individuals or industries, people still have not really gotten wind that water is not infinite supply. They think it'll come out of the faucets and house forever, and it just won't. Introducing more industry that uses more and more of our fresh water (using salt water for mining and such is extremely expensive) just is a bad idea.

Dakini

karasti said:

A lot of the problem though is just humans. Yes, people with wells need water, of course. But SO much water goes to irrigating farmland in areas we shouldn't even have farmland, to water lawns in areas there shouldn't be grassy lawns, to supply industry and mining and so on in areas that have such limited water supply just by the nature of their climate..

I've always been in favor of plugging the pipeline that sends Owens River water to LA. The Owens Valley was a highly agriculturally productive paradise in the high Sierras before LA speculators bought the river front properties to take control of the river, and turn the valley into desert. LA was just a dusty outpost during Mexican rule.

person

I learned about a new technique for fracking today called gel fracking or gas fracking. It replaces water with a liquefied propane, when the propane is used it turns into a gas and can be recollected and either used as fuel for the wells or reused into the gel. It leaves behind all the nasty stuff in the ground and since it evaporates and doesn't stay behind like water more of the gas can be retrieved. It is more expensive and still waits approval in the US so companies may still opt for the water based method, but if the government could mandate the gas process that could solve a lot of problems.

http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20111104/gasfrac-propane-natural-gas-drilling-hydraulic-fracturing-fracking-drinking-water-marcellus-shale-new-york

vinlyn

person said:

I learned about a new technique for fracking today called gel fracking or gas fracking. It replaces water with a liquefied propane, when the propane is used it turns into a gas and can be recollected and either used as fuel for the wells or reused into the gel. It leaves behind all the nasty stuff in the ground and since it evaporates and doesn't stay behind like water more of the gas can be retrieved. It is more expensive and still waits approval in the US so companies may still opt for the water based method, but if the government could mandate the gas process that could solve a lot of problems.

What about the affect on earthquakes?

person

I don't know, the article didn't mention anything about them. I'd have to guess that the effect on earthquakes would be the same, maybe even worse since there is no liquid as a space filler. It still is a new technology and is being tested out in small amounts so there probably isn't any specific data related to earthquakes.

person

A side issue of fracking is mining of the silica sand used for the fracking process. My sister is dealing with the possibility of a new mine close to where she lives and the whole topic seems to have hit a little closer to home. This is an issue for those who live in Minnesota and Wisconsin as these states have large deposits of this fine sand. The dust is super fine and is a known carcinogen as well as being able to case permanent scarring to the lungs. Here is a short interview that sums it up fairly well (notice all the trucks passing in the background)

vinlyn

It's also a huge issue out here in Colorado and emotions are running very high.

Steve_B

To put fracking, and other extractive technologies, into perspective, it helps to think of two aspects of energy, supply and demand. Fracking is a method to provide the supply, as is conventional oil extraction, coal mining, solar, wind and other renewables. Demand is determined by how much energy we use. Fracking does NOT cause energy to be used; only demand does that. Fracking is merely one of many methods used to provide the supply. Here in the American west (I live in Colorado) natural gas obtained by fracking is largely used to replace coal in power plants. In that use, fracking is -- in my opinion -- a vastly better option than coal. Vasty better. A long, long way from ideal, unfortunately, but better for the environment, and my lungs, than coal is.

But the real solution lies on the demand side. Is your home insulated to DOE guidelines? Is your roof white? Do you have a maximally fuel efficient vehicle? All LED lighting? Do you take showers of reasonable length? The list goes on and on. This is where the real solution is. Arguing about fracking misses the point. Nonrenewable supplies are polluters. Renewable supplies help, but dollar for dollar efficiency is generally a better buy than renewable supply; that is, you can save more fossil fuel BTUs.

vinlyn

Where in Colorado Steve? Colo Springs here.

Jason

Heh. I drove through Colorado Springs yesterday on the way to Manitou Springs from Palmer Lake. Pretty nice area in general.

vinlyn

Manitou Springs sounds like your kind of place, Jason.

They had some nasty flash flooding last week due to last year's fire.

Did you by any chance go to the Buddhist temple (Theravada) just NE of Colorado Springs?

Jason

No, on a family vacation with my girlfriend and her parents, so mostly doing touristy things. Manitou Springs was alright. We mainly went there for lunch before checking out Garden of the Gods.