Despite a record fine of $390,000 levied last month against Oxy USA, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) has a backlog of unresolved water and soil contamination cases resulting from natural gas drilling in northwest Colorado, an investigation by media outlet, Colorado Independent, reveals.

Oxy, along with the Western Slope’s largest natural gas producer, Williams, has also been implicated in a 2008 spill that contaminated a spring near the cabin of Ned Prather in Garfield County, fouling his drinking water well and sending him to the hospital after he guzzled benzene. Both companies deny responsibility.

That case, along with a half a dozen other instances of water or soil contamination linked to drilling operations conducted by at least six different companies, remains unresolved, according to COGCC records. Some of the cases date back to 2007.

The COGCC earlier this month accepted the terms of the Oxy settlement, which included $390,000 for pit-leak contamination in the Cascade Canyon area and another $257,400 for a leak at Rock Springs. But the Prather case and several other high-profile spills remain unresolved, with no fines levied more than two years after they occurred.

SPILLS AND UNRESOLVED CASES

On Jan. 31, 2008, Marathon Oil reported a defect in a pit liner that caused the release of nearly 32,000 barrels of water that was “flow-back” from a hydrofracture job being stored in a reserve pit to be used in another “frack” job. The water, according to state documents, “infiltrated the subsurface, moved laterally, and discharged from a cliff above Garden Gulch” and into the Parachute Creek drainage. That same month, Berry Petroleum reported a similar defective pit liner resulting in the release of an unknown quantity of drilling fluids into Garden Gulch. But the company hadn’t reported two previous spills that occurred earlier in 2008 and in November of 2007.

Those incidents resulted in the COGCC reworking its regulations for pit liners on the Roan Plateau. But neither company has been fined.

“You’re right, some of [the cases] date back several years, and I don’t want to make excuses, that shouldn’t be the case,” said David Neslin, executive director of the COGCC, which is charged with permitting and regulating natural gas and oil drilling in Colorado. “We do need to do a better job at bringing timely enforcement matters, and we’re committed to doing so.”

You can read more of the report from David Williams HERE.