The Wattenberg field is not a new shale play you are just hearing about, it’s produced 2.8 Tcf of gas since its discovery in 1970 and much of that output was made possible by hydraulic fracturing.

This Forbes piece argues fracking is not new or untested, as many opponents claim, and the practice has been done safely in Colorado for 40 years, which makes the current push to ban fracking in several Colorado communities misguided.

“In 2008, just one year prior to the current boom, Weld County, northeast of Denver was already the largest gas producing county in all of Colorado. That year the Energy Information Administration (EIA) ranked Colorado’s Wattenberg as having the 9th largest proven reserves of any Wet Natural Gas Field in the Nation. The greater DJ Basin had over 20,000 wells, 11,000 of which were within the Wattenberg, and many of which had been hydraulically fractured not just once, but multiple times throughout the years,” according to the article.

“The Wattenberg field near Denver is a reservoir that typifies the ‘tight gas reservoir.’ Through advancements in fracturing [fracking] technology, Wattenberg is now considered commercial…One of the most significant aspects of the Wattenberg…… development program has been the unlocking of gas reserves ….. through new hydraulic fracturing technology.” – 1976 Petroleum Society of Canada technical paper via Forbes