Colorado and fracking

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In 2000 the number of active oil and gas wells in Colorado almost doubled from 22,228 to 43,354 in 2010. Analysts believe there is more oil shale and shale gas to be found in the state. Pushing the lease growth is the discovery of oil in the Niobrara shale, which sits more than 6,000 feet below the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The oil is not uniformly distributed in the vast shale and limestone formation, which stretches from southern Colorado into Wyoming.

Introduction

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) notes that 95 percent of new wells in Colorado are fractured wells, releasing natural gas. The BLM states that, in Colorado, the majority of fluids used in the fracturing process are recycled and no fluids are sent to wastewater treatment plants, which has caused water quality concerns in the eastern United States. For the fluids disposed of, the BLM states that 60 percent goes into "deep and closely-regulated" waste injection wells, 20 percent "evaporates from lined pits" and 20 percent is "discharged as usable surface water" under permits from the Colorado Water Quality Control Commission. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis claimed in 2009 that natural gas industry represented 7.3% of Colorado’s economy. According to industry data, at least 430 million gallons of chemical-laced fluids have been injected into more than 9,000 oil and gas wells in the state, mostly along the northern Front Range and the Western Slope.

Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper (D) is a former petroleum geologist for Buckhorn Petroleum. Hickenlooper took $75,000 from oil and gas interests in his 2010 election, and appointed an industry campaign donor to an important regulatory position. He has appeared in industry-funded ads in newspapers and on radio stations across the state, proclaiming that no water in Colorado had been contaminated by fracking, and has said that fracking fluids are edible.

Drilling wells

Western Voices -- North Fork Valley

Gas and oil leases in six Colorado counties — Larimer, Weld, Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and El Paso — more than doubled between 2008 and 2011, with 8,100 leases filed from August 2010 to August 2011, according to county records. Leases were granted to 40 different companies. If Weld County, a traditional oil and gas area, is removed, leasing activity jumped to 2,700 leases in 2010-2011, from 117 in the same period in 2008-09. According to the Denver Post, "Propelling the rush is the discovery of oil in the Niobrara — a geological formation sitting more than 6,000 feet below the Front Range."

Proposed projects

Location of gas leases in the Niobrara formation in Wyoming and Colorado.

In August 2012, about 30,000 acres will be put up for lease for oil & gas drilling near the North Fork Valley communities of Hotchkiss, Paonia, and Crawford, Colorado. The Bureau of Land Management released a March 2012 Draft Preliminary Environmental Assessment and announced a Finding of No Significant Impact. The finding was based on two old guidance documents: a 1989 Resource Management Plan and a 1987 Report on Oil & Gas. Critics say oil & gas has changed a lot over the years, particularly the growth of fracking, and more is known today about possible health risks, with BLM currently working on new guidance documents. They say a detailed Environmental Impact Statement is needed for the decision, particularly since the parcels being considered are near Paonia Reservoir, Fire Mountain Canal, Cottonwood Creek and other critical waterways.

The 2010 top drillers and number of permits in Colorado

The top drillers and number of permits in Colorado for the 12-month period ending August 30, 2011:

Weld County

Mineral Resources: 1,018

EOG Resources: 594

Diamond Resources: 483

Larimer County

Marathon Oil: 50

Strata Oil & Gas: 45

Prospect Energy: 44

Arapahoe County

GFL & Associates: 137

Chesapeake Exploration: 82

Upstream Innovations: 56

Douglas County

Chesapeake Exploration: 103

Meredith Land & Minerals: 55

Great Western Oil & Gas: 16

Elbert County

Chesapeake Exploration: 411

ConocoPhillips: 162

Continental Land Resources: 155

El Paso County

Transcontinent Oil: 138

Continental Land Resources: 110

Simmons-McCartney: 94

Gothic Shale, Colorado

Bill Barrett Corporation has drilled and completed several gas wells in Colorado's section of the Gothic shale. The wells are in Montezuma County, Colorado, in the southeast part of the Paradox basin. A horizontal well in the Gothic flowed 5,700 MCF per day.

Disposal wells

Colorado has about 305 disposal wells and two or three sets of earthquakes in the state have been linked to injection wells, although none definitively since the early 2000s. One of the earliest known cases of “induced seismicity” from wastewater injection occurred at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in 1966, linked to a well designed to dispose of tainted water from the chemical weapons site. More recently, a series of small earthquakes near Trinidad may have been related to drilling injection wells.

In 2011, the oil and gas commission began requiring a site review by the Colorado Geological Survey to look for proximity to known faults before permitting injection wells. The commission also limits the injection pressures for the wells to prevent fractures and limits the total volume of wastewater pumped down the wells.

Waste Exemptions

A 2012 ProPublica investigation into the threat to water supplies from underground injection of waste found the EPA has granted energy and mining companies exemptions to release toxic material in more than 1,500 places in aquifers across the country. The EPA may issue exemptions if aquifers are too remote, too dirty, or too deep to supply affordable drinking water; however, EPA documents showed the agency has issued permits for portions of reservoirs that are in use, assuming contaminants will stay within the finite area exempted. More than 1,100 aquifer exemptions have been approved by the EPA's Rocky Mountain regional office, according to a list the agency provided to ProPublica. Many of them are relatively shallow and some are in the same geologic formations containing aquifers used by Denver metro residents. More than a dozen exemptions are in waters that might not be treated before supplied as drinking water.

Environmental Impacts

Water

State officials charged with promoting and regulating the energy industry estimated that fracking required about 13,900 acre-feet of water in 2010, about 0.08 percent of the total water consumed in Colorado. A Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission report projected water needs for fracking will increase to 18,700 acre-feet a year by 2015. Environmentalists point out that the water used by fracking gets lost from the hydrological cycle forever because it is contaminated.

Several projects in the state have proposed draining water out of Colorado rivers and siphoning the water to towns and cities that have been selling large quantities for fracking. Environmental advocates note that fracking in Colorado could negatively impact the state's rivers, as the process requires a significant amount of water.

As of 2012, water-intensive fracking projects includes:

• the Windy Gap Firming Project, which proposes to drain up to an additional 10 billion gallons of water out of the Upper Colorado River every year and pipe and pump that water to northern Front Range Colorado cities including Loveland, Longmont and Greeley -- three cities that have recently started selling water for fracking (Greeley sold over 500 million gallons in 2011).
• the Northern Integrated Supply Project, which proposes to drain an additional 13 billion gallons per year out of the Cache la Poudre River northwest of Fort Collins.
• the Seaman Reservoir Project by the City of Greeley on the North Fork of the Cache la Poudre River, which proposes to drain several thousand acre feet of water out of the North Fork and the mainstem of the Cache la Poudre.

Is fracking to blame?

• the Flaming Gorge Pipeline, which could reportedly take a large amount of water—up to 81 billion gallons—out of the Green and Colorado River systems every year and pipe and pump that water to the Front Range.
• the City of Denver has opened up drilling and fracking on its property at Denver International Airport, while Denver is also pushing forward with the Moffat Collection System Project, a proposal to drain water out of the Upper Colorado River and pipe it to Denver.

In March 2012 at Colorado's auction for unallocated water, companies that provide water for hydraulic fracturing at well sites were top bidders on supplies once claimed exclusively by farmers. The Northern Water Conservancy District runs the auction, offering excess water diverted from the Colorado River Basin — 25,000 acre-feet so far this year — and conveyed through a 13-mile tunnel under the Continental Divide. The average price paid for water at the auctions has subsequently increased from around $22 an acre-foot in 2010 to $28 in 2012. In June 2012, the town of Erie doubled its commercial water rate from $5.73 per 1,000 gallons to $11.46 per 1,000 gallons -- for oil and gas developers only.

About 98 percent of the state is experiencing varying levels of drought in 2012, according to the Colorado State University (CSU), with the most severe in the Arkansas Basin, where drought levels range from D1, or "moderate," to D3, or "extreme." The Texas drought from summer 2011 is also still affecting Colorado, CSU said.

An analysis by Environmental Working Group and The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) found that at least 65 chemicals used by natural gas companies in Colorado are listed as hazardous under six major federal laws designed to protect Americans from toxic substances.

On July 9, 2012, the Aurora City Council in CO voted to "lease" water to Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum, which will use the water for hydraulic fracturing. Anadarko will pay the city $9.5 million over five years for access to almost 2.5 billion gallons of water.

Air

Health effects

A study conducted over three years by the Colorado School of Public Health concluded that fracking can contribute to “acute and chronic health problems for those living near natural gas drilling sites”. The report will be published in Science of the Total Environment. "The study found those living within a half-mile of a natural gas drilling site faced greater health risks than those who live farther away." Researchers located “potentially toxic petroleum hydrocarbons in the air near the wells including benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene.” Benzene is classified as a known carcinogen by the EPA. Concerns about water pollution are well publicized. However, this study illuminates the dangers fracking poses to air quality. The LA Times reports, "It’s almost as if a small factory is rapidly erected at the drilling site, as machinery and tanks of chemicals and water are brought in. Studies have shown that air pollution at many of these sites is greater than in surrounding areas." Researchers collected data in Garfield County, CO from January 2008 to November 2010, using EPA air quality standards. The study reiterates earlier research which shows that prolonged exposure to airborne petroleum hydrocarbons causes “an increased risk of eye irritation and headaches, asthma symptoms, acute childhood leukemia, acute myelogenous leukemia, and multiple myeloma.” Lead author of the study, Lisa McKenzie, PhD, MPH (masters of public health) stresses the importance of including air pollution into the national discourse on hydraulic fracturing.

Methane

A 2012 study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder, estimated that natural-gas producers in an area known as the Denver-Julesburg Basin in Colorado are losing about 4% of their natural gas to the atmosphere — not including additional losses in the pipeline and distribution system. This is more than double the official inventory of methane leakage.

Ozone

According to the state of Colorado, natural gas and oil operations were the largest source of ozone-forming pollution, VOCs and NOx, in 2008.

A 2013 Environmental Science and Technology study by scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences found that emissions from oil and natural gas operations account for 55% of the pollutants -- such as propane and butane -- that contribute to ozone formation in Erie, CO. Key to the findings was the recent discovery of a "chemical signature" that differentiates emissions by oil and gas activity from those given off by other sources.

Silica

In July 2012, two federal agencies released research highlighting dangerous levels of exposure to silica sand at oil and gas well sites in five states: Colorado, Texas, North Dakota, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania. Silica is a key component used in fracking. High exposure to silica can lead to silicosis, a potentially fatal lung disease linked to cancer. Nearly 80 percent of all air samples taken by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health showed exposure rates above federal recommendations. Nearly a third of all samples surpassed the recommended limits by 10 times or more. The results triggered a worker safety hazard alert by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Spills and accidents

In 2004, Canada-based Encana Corp. improperly cemented and hydraulically fractured a well in Garfield County, Colorado. The state found that the poor cementing caused natural gas and associated contaminants to travel underground more than 4,000 feet laterally. As a result, a creek became contaminated with dangerous levels of carcinogenic benzene. The state of Colorado fined Encana a then-record $371,200. After more than seven years of cleanup efforts, as of September 2012, three groundwater monitoring wells near the creek still showed unsafe levels of benzene.

In March 2013 it was reported that an "underground plume of toxic hydrocarbons from an oil spill north of the Colorado River near Parachute [Colorado] has been spreading for 10 days, threatening to contaminate spring runoff. Vacuum trucks have sucked up more than 60,000 gallons, but an unknown amount remains in the ground by Parachute Creek ... The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ... was in the process of formally ordering the Williams energy company — which runs a gas-processing plant on the creek — to do all in its power to protect surface water. State regulators who ... ordered the same now are preparing to issue Williams a 'Notice of Alleged Violation' and demand a long-term cleanup plan."

Parachute Creek flows into the Colorado River.

Tremors and injection wells

In April 2013, it was reported that an ongoing earthquake swarm in New Mexico and Colorado, which includes Colorado's largest earthquake since 1967, was due to underground wastewater injection, researchers said at the Seismological Society of America's annual meeting in Salt Lake City. The reported earthquakes are concentrated near wastewater injection wells in the Raton Basin. Companies there have been extracting methane from underground coalbeds. The basin stretches from northeastern New Mexico to southern Colorado.

Regulations and oversight

The Colorado General Assembly created the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission to “foster the responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resources.” To do so, the COGCC developed and implemented regulations to govern the oil and gas industry. In 2010, there were more than 43,000 active wells in Colorado. That year the COGCC employed 15 inspectors, 7 who performed a total of 16,228 inspections.

In January 2013 the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was set to begin a public debate over the future of fracking regulations in the state. One proposal from commission staff members would bump up the buffer between well sites and buildings from "150 feet in rural areas and 350 feet in urban areas to a flat 500 feet anywhere." Additionally, "within 1,000 feet of a building, oil and gas operators would have to notify neighbors and employ 'enhanced mitigation' measures to cut down on dust, noise, odor and lighting." It was also reported that under the new rules, "operators would have to have a hearing before the commission before proceeding with a well less than 1,000 feet away from a high-occupancy building, such as a school or hospital."

In March 2013 county, energy company stuck a deal on safeguards for shale project in Colorado. A southern Colorado county within the energy-rich San Juan Basin approved an agreement with Swift Energy. The deal was aimed at lessening impacts from a proposed oil shale exploration project.

It was reported that "In a unanimous vote, the three La Plata County commissioners -- two Democrats and one Republican -- adopted the memorandum of understanding, which commits Houston-based Swift Energy Co. to take certain precautions when drilling a pair of proposed test wells in a rural area in the western part of the 1,700-square-mile county. The memorandum of understanding helps clear the way for the first test wells under the county's jurisdiction to be drilled in the Mancos Shale."

Colorado city council back ban on fracking

In the face of a flood of public support, the Fort Collins City Council on February 19, 2013 took a step toward banning fracking within the city limits.

The council voted 5-2 to give initial approval to an ordinance that would prohibit all gas and oil exploration activity in the city including hydraulic fracturing, a commonly used technique to increase oil and gas production from wells.

The council also passed a resolution stating its support for the city of Longmont in its legal fight with the state over its efforts to regulate gas and oil activity within its city limits. The state through the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has authority over the industry.

Chemical disclosure

In December 2011, in accordance with new rules brokered by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, energy companies in the state will have to disclose to the public the chemical family of each chemical they use in their fracking process. It has been reported that the disclosure must be made within two months on an independent internet database: FracFocus.org.

The new rules require drillers to file a “notice of intent to conduct a fracking treatment” of a well 48 hours prior to a frack job, and to identify the chemicals used in a frack job within 60 days after the job is finished. Chemicals can still remain protected by trade secret designation, although that designation can be challenged by the public. Even if there are complaints, however, the COGCC is not required by the new rules to investigate, although citizens can then file a legal claim.

Water testing

On January 7, 2013, Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission's (COGCC) nine-member commission unanimously voted to approve the "Statewide Groundwater Baseline Sampling and Monitoring" rule that requires oil and gas operators to collect up to four water samples from aquifers, existing water wells and other "available water sources" within a half-mile of proposed wells. The sampling must be done before wells are drilled and within 72 months after the wells are placed into operation. The rules are the first to require the oil and natural gas industry to test groundwater quality both before and after drilling.

Regulatory violations

In 2004, a faulty natural gas well casing in Colorado was linked to contamination of water 4,000 feet away from the well site.

A 2008-2011 Colorado School of Public Health hydrological study found that as the number of gas wells in Garfield County increased, methane levels in water wells also rose. State regulators later fined EnCana Oil and Gas for faulty well casings that allowed methane to migrate into water supplies through natural faults.

In 2008, a drilling wastewater pit in Colorado leaked 1.6 million gallons of fluid, which migrated into the Colorado River.

Legislation

Disclosure rules

Effective April 1, 2012, companies using fracking must post on FracFocus within 60 days the names of products, chemicals, and their CAS numbers. Landowners within 500 feet of a well will receive information on how fracking works and how to do baseline water testing. The information is also disclosed to Colorado Oil and Gas Commission and to health care professionals in an emergency. The chemical family of each proprietary compound will be disclosed to the public, although it allows exemptions for "trade secrets."

Citizen activism

Western Voices -- Rifle

Boulder

On May 13, 2013 Boulder, Colorado moms, children and activists delivered several hundred postcards Monday to the three county commissioners before holding a rally on the Boulder County Courthouse lawn, urging the commissioners to extend a fracking moratorium. The commissioners were planning to discuss imposing transportation impact fees on oil and gas companies drilling and operating wells in the county the same week.

Fort Collins

In March 2013, the Fort Collins city council passed a ban on fracking that grandfathered in the one driller, Prospect Energy, that currently operates on eight well pads in northern Fort Collins. Three weeks later, in a quiet vote without public input, the city council passed an “agreement” with the driller allowing the company to drill and frack on two new square miles of land surrounding the Budweiser brewery in North Fort Collins.

El Paso County moratorium

In September 2011, El Paso County Commission voted to impose a four-month moratorium on issuing permits for activities involving oil and gas drilling, to provide time to determine whether the Colorado county needs additional regulations on drilling.

Loveland considers water ban for fracking

The City of Loveland's water utility has been selling water to suppliers of the oil and natural gas industry from metered city hydrants for use in controversial hydraulic fracturing processes to recover petroleum. In April 2012, city councilors began a process to decide whether the city will join Northern Colorado neighbors Fort Collins and Boulder in barring water sales for fracking.

Longmont bans fracking

In May 2012, the Longmont ballot issue committee Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont filed a notice of intent with the Longmont City Clerk to put a charter amendment on the November 2012 ballot to ban hydraulic fracturing within Longmont city limits. According to Food & Water Watch, the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) and the Colorado Attorney General have tried to weaken Longmont's local regulations for oil and gas drilling, such as prohibiting drilling in residential areas, spurring the amendment. If successful, Longmont would be the first city in Colorado to ban fracking.

In June 2012 the group Our Health, Our Future, Our Longmont, began a petition drive to ban fracking within city limits. The ban — Ballot Question 300 — was passed by majority vote in the November 2012 election, and will amend Longmont's city charter to ban hydraulic fracturing and the storage of fracking waste in city limits.

The oil and gas industry fought the ban, giving $507,500 to the opposing group Main Street Longmont. The Colorado Supreme Court has forbidden cities from banning oil and gas drilling outright, but has decided lesser measures on a case-by-case basis. Gov. John Hickenlooper said that passage of Ballot Question 300 would likely bring a second lawsuit from the state.

Colorado Springs group sues to allow vote on fracking ban

In May 2013 a citizens group based in Colorado Springs was reported to have "sued the city of Colorado Springs in an effort to move forward a petition to amend the City Charter to ban oil and gas drilling in the city. The Colorado Springs Citizens for Community Rights filed the lawsuit in 4th Judicial District Court in response to the city's Initiative Title Setting Review Board's refusal to affix a title to the petition. The title is needed before signatures can be gathered; the board rejected the petition, saying it violates the city's single-subject rule. The proposed charter amendment, which the group wants to see on the November ballot, would prohibit any company from engaging 'in the extraction of natural gas or oil, ' including the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking."

Citizens march to deliver signatures opposing fracking operation

In June 2012 a group of mothers and children living in Colorado marched into EnCana Corporation headquarters in Denver to deliver a petition signed by 21,000 people demanding the company pull the plug on its project near the town of Erie, Colorado. Encana is preparing to drill a well in Canyon Creek, where a prairie rife with birds and a wetland alive with waterfowl separate it from hundreds of houses in the nearby Creekside neighborhood. An elementary school is located a few hundreds yards south of the drilling site, which is at a legal distance.

Industry representatives dismissed the petition. A large rally was planned for June 9, 2012 to try to draw more attention to the drilling noise and pollution that burden affected citizens.

Public Trust Initiatives

Phil Doe of Littleton and Richard Hamilton of Fairplay have introduced Public Trust Initiatives 3 and 45 to protect state waters. Initiative 3 would apply the common-law doctrine of “public trust” to water rights, and make “public ownership of such water legally superior to water rights, contracts, and property law.” It would also grant unrestricted public access to natural streams and their banks. Initiatives 45 would amend Article XVI, Section 6 of the state constitution to limit, and possibly prohibit, stream diversions that would “irreparably harm the public ownership interest in water.” In April 2012, the Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way for the initiatives to proceed. In order for them to appear on the November 2012 ballot, each initiative must get 86,000 signatures by August 6, 2012, but they did not receive the required signatures to appear on the ballot.

Citizen groups

• Citizens for a Healthy Community
• Western Colorado Congress
• Save Colorado from Fracking
• San Juan Citizens Alliance
• Fracking Colorado
• Routt County Frack

Industry groups

• Colorado Oil & Gas Association

Reports

Air pollution

In a 2012 Science of the Total Environment study, researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health found that air pollution caused by hydraulic fracturing or fracking may contribute to acute and chronic health problems for those living near natural gas drilling sites. The report, based on three years of monitoring, found a number of potentially toxic and carcinogenic petroleum hydrocarbons in the air near oil/gas wells, including benzene, ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene. Benzene has been identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as a known carcinogen. Other chemicals included heptane, octane and diethylbenzene but information on their toxicity is limited. The greatest health impact corresponds to the relatively short-term, but high emission, well completion period. The effects could include eye irritation, headaches, sore throat and difficulty breathing.

The report, which looked at those living about a half-mile from the wells, was in response to the rapid expansion of natural gas development in rural Garfield County, in western Colorado - residents asked the School to test for health impacts. The lead researcher noted that "there wasn't data available on all the chemicals emitted during the well development process. If there had been, then it is entirely possible the risks would have been underestimated."

Regulatory enforcement

A 2012 report by the group Earthworks, "Inadequate enforcement means current Colorado oil and gas development is irresponsible," found that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has failed its mission of “foster[ing] the responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas natural resources,” due to its inadequate enforcement of its own rules. Specifically, the report found that:

• Inspection capacity is inadequate;
• Violations are not consistently assessed;
• Violations are inadequately reported and tracked;
• Fines are rarely issued to violators;
• Fines are inadequate to punish or prevent irresponsible behavior by oil and gas operators; and
• Ultimately, the environment is not protected.

Resources

Related SourceWatch articles

• United States and fracking

Click on the map below for state-by-state information on fracking:

External links

• FracTracker

External Articles

• John Colson, "Former gas industry ‘water handler' now a whistleblower," Colorado Post Independent, March 10, 2012.

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