Get the Frack Out of Northern Colorado!

FORT COLLINS, CO -- Walking around Old Town Fort Collins on a sunny Saturday afternoon, visitors can usually hear the sounds of buskers on street corners, water splashing in the fountain, and the laughter of tourists and community members resonating through the streets. This Saturday, however, the sounds were a bit different.

Chants of, "When the planet we love is under attack, what do we do? Stand up fight back!" and "Get the frack out of Northern Colorado!" dominated the sounds of passersby.

Over a hundred people gathered in Old Town Plaza Saturday afternoon to hear organizers speak about the climate crisis in Northern Colorado and demand Colorado State University leaders to change sustainability practices at the university.

A group of over a hundred people gathered in Old Town Plaza to hear speakers. Many community members rode bikes to the event, participated in chants, and brought signs to the event. Photo by Kelly Ragan (Coloradoan).

Talk of the climate crisis and demands to move away from fracking and fossil fuels has been prominent worldwide for decades. According to CNBC, 72% of people are concerned that global climate change will harm them personally at some point in their lifetime.

For many of the speakers and attendees of the Fort Collins Climate Strike, it already has. “In Northern Colorado, and Weld County specifically, so many folks experience horrific air quality, adverse health impacts, and immense environmental degradation as a result of fracking,” said Riley Ruff, Northern Colorado Team Coordinator at 350 Colorado, a grassroots organization dedicated to solving the climate crisis.

According to the American Lung Association, Colorado's Front Range cities, including Fort Collins and Greeley, have some of the highest levels of air pollution in the country behind Los Angeles and California's Central Valley.

Tricia Garcia-Nelson, a mother of students at the Bella Romero Academy in Greeley, shared her community's story in front of the crowd on Saturday and gave Fort Collins residents in attendance a wake-up call.

"The pollution from the fracking that is already affecting my community in Weld County is soon going to be affecting Fort Collins," she said, emphasizing the need for Fort Collins community members to act with urgency.

Garcia-Nelson also discussed the differences in the racial demographics of Weld County versus Fort Collins and how that influences pollution in Northern Colorado: "In my community, we don't have the privilege to say no to fracking. But you all do. We need to lift up Black and brown communities like mine because at the end of the day, we all know that those communities are the ones being polluted."

Tricia Garcia-Nelson addresses crowd while holding a sign reading "environmental justice now!" in Spanish. Garcia-Nelson has been involved with climate justice in Northern Colorado since 2016. Photo by Rowan Schaberg.

Ruff, also a student at Colorado State University, spoke about CSU's identity as a land-grant institution and demanded change in certain environmental practices on campus.

Land-grant institutions were created through the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 to teach agriculture, military, and mechanic arts so members of the working classes could obtain an education. The land granted to build the universities belonged to the Native People in the area at the time.

According to CSU's Land Acknowledgement, as a land-grant institution, it must recognize that the founding of the university "came at a dire cost to Native Nations and peoples whose land this University was built upon" and thus, "we accept that our mission must encompass access to education and inclusion."

Ruff discussed one of 350 Colorado's demands of Colorado State University: returning the 165 acre property formerly occupied by Hughes Stadium to the Indigenous people, arguing that "if our very own land-grant institution was actually acknowledging the harm they inflicted on Indigenous populations, they would give it back to the rightful stewards of the land."

Additionally, Ruff and other speakers demanded that CSU cease their investments in the fossil fuel industry to minimize worsening the air quality in Northern Colorado that Garcia-Nelson is warning of. "As an institution with great socio-political influence, great resources, and power, CSU has a duty to stand up for our frontline communities that consistently face the repercussions of fracking."

Speakers urged attendees to sign 350 Colorado's petition to stop fracking in Northern Colorado and to contact Colorado State University administrators regarding their specific impact on the land in the area.

For more information, visit the event's FaceBook page and https://350colorado.org/.

Posters were scattered around CSU's campus with information about the climate strike to encourage student and community member attendance. Poster courtesy of Ehret Nottingham. Photo by Rowan Schaberg.