April 24, 2015 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution
Colorado on Friday joined a lawsuit by oil-producing states challenging the federal government’s new rules for fracking on federal public lands.
The lawsuit contends the U.S. Bureau of Land Management cannot impose regulations on hydraulic fracturing, arguing that federal law lets states regulate oil and gas operations. Wyoming and North Dakota launched the litigation.
Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman issued a statement saying Colorado has robust regulations and that state regulators are doing a good job.
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April 23, 2015 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling
Earthquakes of magnitude 3 or greater are 100 times more likely now than in 2008 in regions of Colorado and seven states that are hotbeds for oil and gas drilling, federal geologists said Wednesday.
This has prompted the government to prepare new seismic-risk maps for construction, insurance and public safety.
The question of who bears the costs of possible damage and quake-resistant construction has yet to be decided. But a U.S. Geological Survey team, based in Colorado, also has started a series of meetings with engineers and designers.
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March 1, 2015 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling
Oil and gas companies have yet to fully restore land around half of the 47,505 inactive wells in Colorado, and 72 percent of those un-restored sites have been in the process for more than five years, The Denver Post has found.
The state requires oil and gas companies to restore all sites completely — to reduce erosion, loosen compacted soil, prevent dust storms and control invasions of noxious weeds.
But Colorado does not set a timetable for getting the job done. Nor do state regulators track how long companies take to complete required work.
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November 18, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
Suncor oil refinery operators responsible for a toxic spill that contaminated Sand Creek and the South Platte River have agreed to pay $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit by federal and state authorities.
A consent decree filed in U.S. District Court says the government authorities agree to drop further legal action unless the spill worsens. This settlement requires court approval after at least 30 days for public notice and comment.
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July 29, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Energy, Environment, Natural Resources, Oil and Gas Drilling, Pollution, Water
Oil and gas spills are happening more often in Colorado — at a rate of two a day this year — and usually without anyone telling residents.
Colorado has seen nearly as many spills so far this year as were recorded in all of 2013 — a reflection of greater drilling activity, new reporting requirements and, the state says, tougher enforcement.
While the American Petroleum Institute industry trade group recently announced new standards encouraging companies to communicate more robustly with communities, API says this doesn’t include conveying details of spills — a task left to government.
State rules require companies to report spills to a Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission database, the owner of land where a spill happens, state health authorities if contaminants reach water, and a local government designee. But government officials generally don’t announce spills or otherwise notify nearby residents.
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July 29, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling
Oil and gas spills are happening more often in Colorado — at a rate of two a day this year — and usually without anyone telling residents.
Colorado has seen nearly as many spills so far this year as were recorded in all of 2013 — a reflection of greater drilling activity, new reporting requirements and, the state says, tougher enforcement.
While the American Petroleum Institute industry trade group recently announced new standards encouraging companies to communicate more robustly with communities, API says this doesn’t include conveying details of spills — a task left to government.
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May 29, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling
MEAD — Oil and gas companies are erecting a new style of walls around drilling and frack sites as the boom expands into Front Range communities.
Made of earthen-color fabric on steel frames up to 32 feet high and 800 feet long, the walls shield industrial machinery from a high school and wetlands greenbelt in Greeley, prairie homes in Windsor, and kids riding bikes and skateboards in Mead.
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It is the latest innovation for companies equipped with horizontal drilling technology that are trying to solve a puzzle: how to extract more fossil fuels from under where people are living and minimize impact.
May 10, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling
Cleanup crews raced against rain and snow Saturday night to keep a wrecked oil train along the South Platte River from leaking into the river, pumping oil from 28,000-gallon tankers.
An estimated 6,500 gallons of Niobrara crude oil spilled from the New York-bound 100-car train into the sandy banks of the South Platte — west of La Salle, about 45 miles north of Denver.
Union Pacific Railroad officials said they’ll excavate contaminated soil and replace it with clean soil.
Five of six derailed tankers had been hauled away, and crews were draining the last one.
Railroad workers replaced an 80-foot stretch of damaged track and were fixing a bridge.
No oil had been detected in the river, federal authorities said.
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May 9, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling
A crude oil train that derailed Friday morning south of Greeley — with six cars toppled along the South Platte River — for several hours was leaking at a rate estimated at 20 to 50 gallons per minute.
Environmental Protection Agency officials were dispatched to the scene. No oil has been confirmed in the river thanks to the work of Union Pacific Railroad responders.
The 100-car train loaded with niobrara crude derailed west of LaSalle near a bridge over the river.
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May 8, 2014 · The Denver Post
By Bruce Finley, Denver Post Staff Writer
Environment, Oil and Gas Drilling
Scientists have found that Colorado’s Front Range oil and gas boom has been emitting three times more methane than previously believed — 19.3 tons an hour — a climate-change problem that state officials hope new rules will address.
The scientists also measured industry emissions of cancer-causing benzene and smog-forming volatile organic compounds at levels up to seven times higher than government agencies have estimated.
Their study — done at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and partly supported by the Environmental Defense Fund — is based on data gathered in 2012 from aircraft flying over the drilling zones north of Denver.
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A journalist and lawyer, Bruce Finley has investigated local, national and international issues with on-site reporting in more than 40 countries. In his position as a staff writer for the Denver Post, he is focusing on environment-related news including water challenges, the oil and gas boom and wildfire.
