2006 Press Releases

Colorado Citizens Groups Seek Disclosure, Monitoring Of Toxic Chemicals By Drilling Companies

Five Colorado citizens groups are asking state officials to require energy companies to fully disclose the toxic chemicals they use when drilling for natural gas and to require monitoring and enforcement to protect human health and the state's air, land and water.

"Chemicals with known human toxicity are being used by the oil and gas industry in Colorado," the groups state in a letter to the directors of four state agencies. "No disclosure of these chemicals is currently being required, either by rule or practice. These chemicals are frequently being released to the environment, with unknown impacts on human health."

With oil and gas development continuing to boom over many parts of Colorado and the region, nearby residents and communities are increasingly impacted by the industry's chemicals and waste products. But neither state nor federal laws require energy companies to adequately disclose what chemicals are in the industrial products they are using, in what combination and how much they inject into formations. And companies are not required to adequately monitor to determine whether the chemicals escape into wells, streams, springs and the air.

Hydraulic fracturing treatments use from 50,000 to 350,000 gallons of fluids containing chemical mixtures that are forced under high pressure to fracture gas-producing formations. Only a portion of the mixture is recovered and stored in open waste pits for reuse or until they evaporate or are hauled away. The rest remain underground.

"For municipalities such as Silt, it's difficult to take steps to protect our residents from oil and gas chemicals if we don't know what they are or whether or not they are entering the environment," said Rick Aluise, the Silt town manager. "We need chemical disclosure and monitoring so that we can determine if these chemicals have entered our water supply."

As manager of the Upper Surface Creek Domestic Water Users Association on the south side of the Grand Mesa, Dan Hawkins has formal responsibility for assuring the water provided to local residents is free of hazardous chemicals and compounds.

"There are legal penalties if we fail to meet our specific responsibilities," Hawkins said. "I want the same accountability for an industry that potentially could put harmful chemicals into our water supply. But we don't even know what baseline chemicals to test for because drilling companies don't have to provide that information."

Local landowners already suffer the consequences of the widespread use of chemicals in oil and gas development that can affect their air and water quality.

"When a well was being drilled near my house, the fumes were so strong that I passed out," said Garfield County landowner Dee Hoffmeister. "I was forced to move out of my house for eight months while they finished drilling and completing that well."

In La Plata County, ranch manager Chester Anderson watched as drilling fluids were spilled from a drilling site and flow into the Pine River just 40 yards away.

"I called state agencies, but they simply treated me as a nuisance and none of my concerns were taken seriously," Anderson said. "As a result of agency inaction, the spill not only contaminated our pasture land, it also ended up in the river."

La Plata County resident Dave Thomson felt an even more direct impact.

"My water started tasting bad last fall when a gas well was being drilled near my property," Thomson said. "But the gas well company and COGCC sampled my water and eventually concluded that drilling fluids had contaminated my well. " When the concentrations of some of the chemicals finally declined I was told it was safe to drink the water," Thomson said. "Only after I started drinking my water did I find out that the company was not required to test for all of the toxic chemicals that it used during the drilling process," Thomson recalled. "I have no ideas, now, whether I have been drinking contaminated water."

The following are just a few examples of the chemicals that natural gas drillers are injecting into Colorado formations:

• 2-BE (2-butoxyethanol; ethylene glycol monobutyl ether) -- linked to liver cancer, testicular degeneration, reproductive problems, and blood disorders that include destruction of red blood cells causing bloody urine;
• 2MBT (2-mercaptobenzothiazole) -- linked to pituitary and adrenal cancer, fetotoxicity, reproductive impairment, and associated with various tumors and mutations;
• 2-(2-methoxyethoxy) ethanol, diethylene glycol monomethyl ether -- suspected carcinogen, known to cause fetal deformities and organ malformations, and reduced male fertility;
• Nonylphenols (ethoxylated nonylphenol) -- estrogenic-like activity, interferes with male development and reproductive ability, impedes brain development, and causes atrophy of the thymus, a critical component of the immune system. The effects on invertebrates and fish in aquatic systems at extremely low concentrations of the nonylphenols has led to their ban in several European countries.

"Without regulators requiring oil and gas companies to disclose the complete make-up and volumes of chemicals in the products they use, a realistic evaluation of their immediate and long-term effects on health and the environment cannot be made," said Theo Colborn, a University of Florida professor and Colorado resident who has studied the impacts of industrial chemicals used to develop natural gas.

"These chemicals attack the nervous system, the skin, the blood and reproductive organs and can have delayed and long term health impacts as well, including cancer," Colborn explained.

Colborn, president of TEDX, Inc., also found that because a large number of volatile products with serious health effects are used during the early stages of natural gas development, when the chemicals are returned to the surface and stored in open pits, they pose a risk to human health that has been previously overlooked.

"With thousands of new gas wells planned in Colorado and the West over the next decade, we need to be sure that basic protections are in place to assure that human health and the air, water and land that sustain us are protected," said Lisa Sumi, research director with the Oil and Gas Accountability Project. "Coloradans and all Westerners should not be used as guinea pigs in what could amount to a massive, uncontrolled experiment on how these toxic chemicals affect the health and lives of the people of this state. Communities that are near drilling operations have the right to know what they are being exposed to."

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For More Information

Contacts:
Lisa Sumi, OGAP, 970-769-2653
Matt Sura, WCC, 970-256-7650

Read a copy of the letter from Colorado citizens groups to state officials.

Local Contacts to Discuss the Impacts
of Chemicals Used in Energy Development

• Dave Thomson, La Plata County livestock grower, (970) 563-4666
• Chester Anderson, La Plata County ranch manager, (970) 759-8544
• Dee Hoffmeister, Garfield County landowner, (970) 309-0734
• Dan Hawkins, Manager, Upper Surface Creek Domestic Water Users Association, (970) 856-7199
• Rick Aluise, Silt Town Manager, (970) 876-2353
• Theo Colborn, President, The Endocrine Disruption Exchange, (TEDX) Inc. (970) 527-6548
• Peggy Utesch, Garfield County landowner, Grand Valley Citizens' Alliance member (970) 984-3107
• Peggy Baxter, Delta County landowner, Western Slope Environmental Resource Council member (970) 856-6225
• Josh Joswick, San Juan Citizens Alliance, (970) 259-3583