County, HCCA work with state to make new fracking disclosure rules

“It’s a significant first step”

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) came out with its new rules requiring the disclosure of the contents of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, fluids on Tuesday, December 13, after taking input from Gunnison County, High Country Citizens’ Alliance (HCCA) and others concerned about the secrecy surrounding the chemicals being injected into the ground.

HCCA signed onto a consortium of environmental groups that was being represented by Earthjustice and Gunnison County invoked its “party status” to take a seat at the state-sponsored negotiations that started December 5 to determine when and how information should be released to the public about the chemicals used to stimulate the flow of natural gas from wells.
Despite producing one-fourth of the nation’s coal-bed methane and a growing body of evidence that suggests fracking fluid can pose a serious risk to ground water and overall environmental health, Colorado was relatively slow to breech the topic of disclosure. Parts of the new rule borrows language from states that have already taken that step.
But after getting increasing pressure from the public and a growing list of industry service providers that began disclosing the information voluntarily, the COGCC undertook the task of developing rules to make disclosure mandatory for all gas field service providers—almost.
“I think [the COGCC’s rule] is a good first step. It’s certainly not perfect but it’s a reasonable compromise,” HCCA public lands director Matt Reed says. “It gives the public a lot more information about the chemicals going into the ground.”
The industry has consistently cited the fact that hydraulic fracturing fluid is 99 percent water and sand, with the remainder made up of chemicals that perform various functions underground. But those chemicals can include diesel fuel and known carcinogens.
Dr. Theo Colborn and her Paonia-based The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDx), has compiled a list of nearly 900 chemicals dangerous to human health that can be added to fracking fluid, since every batch of fluid is made specifically for the formation it’s being injected into.
Because the chemical composition of the fluids can be location-specific and determine the productivity (and profitability) of a well, the industry fought the disclosure of the fluids’ recipe as being proprietary, or a trade secret.
The COGCC’s new rule makes those chemicals and all components of the fracking fluid, as well as their concentrations in the mix, available to the public via the website fracfocus.org. And while the trade secret card is still available to the industry in the new rule, it’s a lot harder to play.
Reed said one of the biggest victories for the environmental community during the negotiations was in making the COGCC reconsider a rule allowing industry to say a recipe for fracking fluid was a trade secret, and keep it hidden from the public. After taking another look, the COGCC agreed to make it harder for gas field operators to get trade secret exemptions.
“The rule that was originally proposed allowed industry to say it’s a trade secret and that was it. No verification was needed,” Reed said. But the revised rule requires industry looking for a trade secret exemption to fill out a form, modeled after a similar requirement in Arkansas, and makes the exemption public.
Colorado Governor “Hickenlooper got this process together to bring transparency to the fracking process,” Reed said. “The proposed rule fell short of that request but we think the final rule goes a long way to achieving transparency for the public.”
Still, he adds, “There are water quality impacts, air quality impacts setbacks from residential areas that need to be considered. There’s a host of issues associated with natural gas drilling and the fracking process. This is a significant first step toward environmental health and public protection but there’s still a long way to go.”