Category Archives: COGCC

Allied organizations, CO state level politics, CO state regulatory agencies, COGCC, COGCC Rulemaking Hearings, SB-181

Remarks by Larimer Alliance representatives to the COGCC’s Cumulative Impact listening session on February 3

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The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission held a virtual listening session on the need for Cumulative Impacts Rulemaking today. Many folks representing a range of environmental groups and communities affected by oil and gas operations in our state and region spoke to both the arcana of regulation and the real human effects they have experienced. We are happy to report that those speaking in favor of comprehensive rulemaking far outnumbered those “fourth and fifth generation” Coloradans speaking against any further constraint on the industry.

Three members of the Larimer Alliance presented the following statements either live in the session or by submitted comments:

From Doug Henderson:

Good afternoon Commissioners,

I am a Larimer County resident and member of the Larimer Alliance for
Health Safety and Environment, a coalition representing thousands of
people in this County.

Our air quality in Larimer County is terrible, due largely to oil and
gas emissions.

The American Lung Association gives our air quality a grade F. Three
years ago Fort Collins ranked #24 for worst ozone pollution in the US.
Now it is ranked #18 worst. Our air quality is getting worse, due
largely to oil and gas emissions.

You know that these emissions harm people’s health and the environment.
You know about the science confirming these impacts.

You know that fracking uses over 10 billion gallons of fresh water in
Colorado every year, turning it into toxic waste.

You know that impacts are local, regional, and global – causing a wide
range of harms from damaging prenatal health to exacerbating climate
change.

And you know that many impacts are cumulative.

SB181 requires the Commission to seriously consider cumulative impacts
in its decisions.  But so far, it has failed to do so, while ignoring
and understating harm to health, safety and welfare, and to our
environment and climate.

Several years ago I spoke to this Commission about the critical role of
people with authority to either stop harm, or to condone harm and to
thereby enable it.

We all are aware of tragedies where officials ignored or denied evidence
of wrongful conduct and harm when they could have acted to stop it. By
their own choice, each became an enabler of harm and each bore
responsibility for the damage done. We have seen it in churches and
schools, in policing and institutions of justice, and in agencies
responsible for natural resources.

Here in Colorado, for decades oil & gas operators have caused harm to
health, safety and the environment, with general impunity.

SB181 was intended as a turning point: for the COGCC to start protecting
public health, safety, welfare and the environment.

Commissioners, your legacy has yet to be fully written.

Will you enable harm from cumulative impacts to go on unabated?

Or will your legacy be protecting the public interest and welfare, and
our environment and climate?

Your legacy as this Board of Commissioners depends on what you, acting
in a majority, choose to do.

We want you to:

     • First, uphold the intent of SB181 regarding cumulative impacts.

     • Ensure that your cumulative impacts task force truly represents
impacted communities and incorporates the latest health and
environmental science.

     • Use EPA standards, without creating compliance loopholes.

     • Deny applications that will contribute to unhealthy pollution
levels, and until our air is no longer classified severe ozone
nonattainment.

     • Require operations to cease emitting ozone precursors on high
pollution days, with accurate monitoring and meaningful enforcement.

     • Penalize operators for inaccurate emissions projections and
inaccurate reporting.

     • Require operators to P&A old wells before permitting a new well.

     • Require fracking operations to use recycled water; and place a
limit and fee on use of fresh water.

Thank you for hearing us in Larimer County.

Respectfully,
Doug Henderson

From Ed Behan:

Good afternoon, commissioners. My name is Ed Behan. I am the Media and Outreach Liaison with the Larimer Alliance for Health, Safety, & the Environment, and I reside in Fort Collins. The Larimer Alliance has advocated at both the local and state level for improved regulation of oil and gas operations in Colorado since the passage of Senate Bill 19-181. We were also one of a group of six environmental organizations that submitted a petition to you last August calling for rulemaking on the cumulative impacts of this industry on our state’s air quality.

There are others here who will address the whys and wherefores of why such rulemaking is necessary. From my own personal perspective, such impacts go beyond just air quality. I have concerns, among other things, about the ridiculously large amounts of water that unconventional oil and gas drilling, also known as fracking, takes out of our already critically drought-stricken drainages. Many others can detail with more eloquence than me the impacts on public health, impacts on wildlife habitats, impacts on marginalized communities, and even impacts on property values near such operations.

But what I want to address is the nature of the working group you proposed to establish last December to work on cumulative impact rulemaking. At the time, Director Robbins indicated he thought that work could be completed in the first quarter of 2023. One month has expired of that first quarter, so I ask: When will the group be set up, how will it be staffed, and do you honestly think it can complete the process in the remaining two months of this first quarter?

It is my understanding that these listening sessions are to help establish the parameters of such a working group, so I propose you move carefully in setting it up. I know the oil and gas industry, as a stakeholder, will have representation in such a body. You should also include representatives of local governments and communities, both rural and urban. Academic and professional experts should be empaneled who can address the health and environmental impacts that have been brought to your attention. And you should surely include representatives of environmental advocacy organizations. Any such group should also hold public hearings with opportunities for citizen comment, and I think it should also be given a good deal more time to effectively address the questions of what regulations are appropriate and what effective enforcement would look like.

Anything less than this would not be what I consider a transparent and good-faith effort. The people and environment of our beloved state deserve a sincere and comprehensive process to address this critical issue. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. I hope you will give this serious consideration.

From Rick Casey:

Good afternoon commissioners and members of the CDPHE. I appreciate the opportunity to make this public comment.

I have been a teacher of environmental economics at Front Range Community since 2009, and have been the webmaster for the non-profit Larimer Alliance since it got started in 2019. I have resided in Colorado since 1981, and have lived in Fort Collins since 2018. I have been closely involved in the issue of fracking in Colorado since 2012, first in Lafayette and Boulder, and now in Fort Collins and Larimer county.

I would like to go on record at this meeting to state that the COGCC has been grossly negligent in failing to pursue the measurement and documentation of cumulative impacts as part of their duty to carry out the intent of SB-181 since it was passed into law in May 2019.

I believe the COGCC has been dragging its feet for too long on this vital issue, and you have lost much of any credibility with the broader public because of your years of delay. Quantifying the negative impacts to the health and environment from decades of O&G activity is the foremost need and intent of SB-181. More than anything else, the COGCC could help restore confidence of the public on this matter if they quickly pursue some programs to study the most intensely affected areas of O&G activity in the state and publish them in a transparent and prompt way.

Thank you.
Rick Casey

Air quality monitoring, APCD, COGCC, Environmental damage from O&G, Ozone pollution in Front Range

WHY CAN’T THE STATE GET ITS FACTS STRAIGHT?

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Spoiler alert: there is a better way to monitor our air pollution than modeling it…

A rather alarming announcement was made recently by the top agency that monitors our air quality for the state:

Corrected ozone data estimate fracking and drilling produce more emissions than every Front Range vehicle

Aside from the misleading title (“every Front Range vehicle”?), the article zeroed in on the foremost burning issue about air quality in the Front Range: what is causing our severe ozone pollution, and how can it be corrected?

Published January 5, 2023, by Colorado Public Radio, the article states that the Air Pollution Control Division (APCD) underestimated the projected pollution in 2023 that will be produced by the O&G industry by no small amount: about 100%, more or less. The extreme number resulted in some extreme reactions from actual people: the director of the APCD, with egg on his face, nonetheless put his best face forward, saying they will “make lemons out of this lemonade,” though I think he was either misquoted or meant that the other way around. “We will get a stronger implementation plan because of this,” he solemnly vowed.

The other extreme reaction, which swiftly came from the industry side, as if dancing together in rhythm, came from the Colorado Oil & Gas Association (COGA). Their director pounced on the news, questioning the accuracy of the data. “We need accuracy, not double-counting!” was the shrill accusation. Whatever…

The data correction was severe enough, however, to justify that the CDPHE, the state department within which the APCD is located, file a formal request to change their recommendation to the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC), the governor-appointed panel to which the CDPHE reports to about our air quality, and that they be allowed to modify their recommendations for their State Implementation Plan (SIP). These data are also required to be filed with the EPA, lending yet more weight to the issue.

Though somewhat difficult for my layman mind to decipher, the formal language in that request seems to say they underestimated emissions from the O&G industry, and they’re going to take another crack at it. The upshot is that the new estimates show the O&G industry producing significantly more GHG, and the ozone precursors, than vehicles…which is why COGA, the trade organization representing the O&G industry in Colorado, is so upset. No one likes being the bad guy.

However, the request did not discuss what might be done as a consequence; but that might be what the APCD director meant about making lemonade out of lemons. Or something like that….it’s all pretty vague and nebulous to the average layperson I should think, as it amounts to two traditionally opposed organizations pointing fingers and squabbling over numbers that none of the public really has access to anyway.

But there is a better way: it’s called direct measurement.

A model, of course, is simply an estimate of something. In this case, the APCD uses models to estimate our projected air pollution (as in, just how many severe ozone warning days are we going to get this summer?) The tempest-in-a-teacup squabbling is over the data that gets fed into the models; but, again, these data are themselves estimates, as none of these state agencies have the resources to go out and keep tabs on all the O&G operations throughout the state. In effect, the APCD is dependent on the industry to give them an honest answer about the number of their operations; which has been, of course, the long term strategy of the O&G industry in this county since the beginning: to be self-regulating, and to never allow even a hint of legislative encroachment into their dealings. Notwithstanding that the first blow to that attitude took the form of the US vs Standard Oil, when Teddy Roosevelt broke up the trusts that were dominating all major industries during the Gilded Age. Ever since, the O&G industry has waged legal and political battle to prevent regulation to affect their bottom line. And, as we have seen, the major oil companies have even been waging a disinformation campaign about the need to take action on climate change for decades…but I digress.

With the passage of SB-181 in Colorado in 2019, that battle has been slowly shifting more power to local authorities to regulate O&G operations in their jurisdictions, and thereby loosening the grip the industry previously held over centralized regulation such as by the COGCC. Now, COGA must not only contend with the COGCC, but with the CDPHE and APCD as well, which is a battlefront that COGA is not as adept at confronting. Because now the issue is the health and well being of people and their environmental quality. And the more that this health and well being can quantified by direct measurement, the sooner we can get to the bottom of the issue — and stop the pointless ping pong match of watching one side blaming the other over whose data is accurate.

The direct measurement of our air quality is what is needed; and the only technology that is capable of discriminating between the ozone precursors that originate from vehicles and those that originate from O&G activity — because they are distinctly different chemicals — are the monitors made by Boulder AIR (see bouldair.com)

Currently operating in eight sites scattered from Commerce City to Erie, in a combination of fixed and mobile stations, the data from this technology has no comparison to anything operated by the CDPHE. The ozone monitoring stations maintained by the state can only detect ozone after it is ozone; they are useless for detecting the sources of the ozone precursors. But this is precisely what is needed; because how in the world can an effective policy for reducing our ozone pollution be conducted if the real cause of the ozone is not identified?

The Larimer Alliance has been asking the Larimer County Commissioners and the Fort Collins City Council to please consider installing Boulder AIR monitoring stations here; to no avail so far. However, we are the prime target for the pollution from Weld County, where there are 18,000 plus active wells. The state ozone monitors that are here, one on the CSU main campus and one the west campus out LaPorte Street, have registered some of the highest ozone readings in the state, I’ve been told, which I would like to verify someday. This is due to the fact that the prevailing winds push the polluted air from Weld County up against the foothills to our west. It would be extremely helpful if we could get two such stations, one positioned east and west of Fort Collins, to verify the amount of pollution we are experiencing, and where it is coming from. Longmont has installed two monitors in their city; why can’t Fort Collins do the same?

To add insult to injury, the CDPHE has not even acknowledged the data that Boulder AIR has been collecting — ever since the first station went into operation at the Boulder Reservoir in 2015. These data are made available in near-real time on the Boulder AIR website, and is available for the state to use. But what does one find on the CDPHE website? Here’s a screenshot:

Screenshot from https://cdphe.colorado.gov/ozone-and-your-health, taken 1/29/23

Does anything here tell you what is causing the ozone? Barely: the implication from the left panel is that you, the public, is the primary factor identified as the cause. YOU are the guilty party….indeed. This is partly true, since the precursors coming from vehicles are indeed caused by people and commercial vehicles out driving around; but there is no discussion of how the O&G industry is the other significant caues — only a picture of a pumpjack to indicate their contribution.

So this is what needs to change, at a minimum:

  • the CDPHE needs to give equal time to the O&G industry’s role in our ozone pollution problem on their website and in their regulatory announcements
  • the CDPHE & APCD need to acknowledge the data collected by Boulder AIR stations as superior to anything they have, and start to use it to identify the true sources of ozone precursors by direct measurement

If the COGCC, CDPHE & APCD were really to take the bull by the horns, and fully live up to the spirit of SB-181 — to protect the health and well being of people and the environment over fostering the O&G industry — then they would build an entire array of Boulder AIR monitoring stations all along the Front Range, from Weld County in the north to Pueblo in the south, and start to use their data to maximum effectiveness…and cease this petty squabbling with COGA over models and estimates that is simply not helping.

Air quality monitoring, APCD, CO state regulatory agencies, COGCC, Environmental damage from O&G

THIS STATE ACTS LIKE IT COULD CARE LESS ABOUT OUR AIR POLLUTION

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I know that being in charge of fixing our air pollution problem here in the must be a difficult job. And I know that the oil and gas industry has long been a strong political force in Colorado. I get that.

But when I learned that the Air Pollution Control Division (APCD) has had a backlog of air permits dating to back over a decade ago, I was incredulous. Applications that have not been processed since they were made over ten years ago? How is that even possible? And does this mean that the original polluters have simply been allowed to continue polluting without a permit?

However incredulous this may seem, it was nonetheless reported on in this recent story in the Colorado Sun on December 16, 2022:

Colorado falls further behind on air pollution permits while losing court cases brought by environmental groups

This lapse by a critical regulatory agency to perform its crucial role in protecting our air quality has not gone unnoticed — and has been a serious enough lapse to get them sued. And to then lose the lawsuit, since the Adams county judge agreed with the plaintiff, the Wildearth Guardians. As the director, Jeremy Nichols, noted, the APCD seems to “just let polluters run the roost and systematically it doesn’t seem like things are changing.” This does not inspire confidence that the agency’s staff is acting in the public’s interest — and that it has not been doing so for quite a while.

But the APCD is not the only culprit. In fact, the entire O&G regulatory framework under the Polis administration has a “light touch”, shall we say, when it comes to making industry comply with environmental law. This has been described in gruesome detail in this article by longtime activist and knowledgeable commentator Phil Doe, published in CounterPunch on December 9, 2022:

A History of Malignancy: Governor Polis and the Oil Industry in Colorado

As the article makes clear, the other major regulatory body, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC), more or less opens the door to industry “bottom feeders” to invade our neighborhoods and poison us. And this will continue until we, the people, start speaking up, making our voices heard, and demanding real regulatory enforcement.

350 Colorado, Allied organizations, COGCC, COGCC Rulemaking Hearings

Larimer Alliance is in the news!

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In response to a significant joint letter submitted earlier in the year by six environmental groups active in the Front Range, the COGCC at last responded to repeated requests for rules about the cumulative impacts of pollution from O&G activities. See here:

CO Enviro Groups Petition State to Protect the Air on High-Pollution Days

In the last paragraph you will notice that the Larimer Alliance is mentioned among the other five groups: 350 Colorado, WildEarth Guardians, Womxn from the Mountain, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Sierra Club of Colorado.