Fires, explosions and toxic releases: Front Range residents fight fracking boom

How oil and gas production is devastating Colorado communities and endangering the climate

• Fossil fuel firms' social media fightback against climate action
• Timeline: half a century of dither and denial

For Barb Binder, the bad news arrived with a knock on the door. That's when she learned from a local activist that a patch of open public space across from her "forever home" in Broomfield County, the Denver suburb where she and her husband planned to retire, was about to become an industrial site.

Initially, she was comforted by the thought that state officials would not possibly allow residential hydraulic fracturing - or fracking, as it is known - to begin if it was not safe.