Election concerns won out over those of the environment and health in Colorado today as Democrats there pulled two controversial initiatives from the ballot on the day of the deadline for submission.

The initiative would have severely restricted the use of fracking to draw natural gas from its location in shale deposits. The measures would have curtailed the use of fracking within 2,000 feet from schools, hospitals, and other public facilities in the state. The measures would also have given local governments precedence over state government over the use of fracking if the the two conflicted.

But, election concerns on the part of the Democrats caused cold feet and the ultimate withdrawal of the measures. Representative Jared Polis (Dem-Colo) pulled his support from the initiatives that up until now he had strongly backed. Democrats were concerned that the two measures would have brought out the Republican votes this election as well as alienated Independents from the Democratic ticket.

Stocks of Noble Energy and Anadarko Petroleum Corp, major energy players in Colorado shot up with the news of the tabling of the measures.

Another result of the tabling was an agreement by the fracking industry to drop two initiatives of its own that would have barred communities that banned fracking in their towns from receiving tax revenues generated by oil and gas development.

For his withdrawal of the measures, Polis has been rewarded with a blue-ribbon panel that will analyse the fracking problem in the state in the coming months.

Fracking has generated revenues within Colorado to almost $30 billion in 2012. 

But, by next year, it is estimated that the industry will need at least 18,700 acre-feet of water, this water will be lost to the hydrological cycle as it becomes contaminated after use by the industry with chemicals linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer.  

  colorado, concerns, democrats, election cycle, fracking, initiatives, National