DENVER—Berry Petroleum Co. has agreed to pay $173,000 in a settlement with Colorado regulators over three spills of drilling fluids in an area where wildlife and livestock get some of their water.
The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is set next week to consider the settlement, which requires that $73,000 of Berry’s payment be spent on an unnamed public project.
Commission staff say a reserve pit at the company’s well pad near Garden Gulch in western Colorado released an estimated 2,400 barrels of drilling fluids in 2007 and 2008, and samples from spring water later had high acetone levels. Staff say Berry is working to prevent future spills.
Separately, Marathon Oil Co. has agreed to pay $143,350 over a fluid spill in the same area, around the same time.
