Gov. John Hickenlooper intends to defuse one of the most high-profile and longstanding controversies regarding the use of hydraulic fracturing in oil and gas drilling — namely, what the heck is going into the ground?
Good for the governor, although the precise form of the new rules won’t be clear for a few months. They’ll be written by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after consultation with a wide range of interests. We hope that when the rules are finally released, they require the public posting of all chemicals — no exceptions — injected into each new well.
Fracking (to use the shorthand term) involves pumping large quantities of water and sand, and a tiny amount of chemicals, deep into the ground to create fissures that help free fossil fuels. The truth is that the identity of the chemicals is no great mystery, given the “material safety data sheets” posted at each well and the lists compiled by regulators and at such websites as FracFocus.
Moreover, Colorado already requires full disclosure of chemicals to state and health officials in the event of an emergency.
Yet environmental and community groups, as well as Democratic Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis, have been pushing for further transparency, and there’s no good reason for industry to dig in its heels. Indeed, a number of companies support the type of regulation now being proposed, although that position is by no means unanimous.
“Everyone in this room understands that hydraulic fracturing doesn’t connect to groundwater, that it’s almost inconceivable that groundwater will be contaminated,” Hickenlooper told the Colorado Oil & Gas Association this week, according to the Denver Business Journal.
“But the industry needs to be transparent,” he added. “It needs to demonstrate, beyond a doubt, that this doesn’t happen.”
Hickenlooper would like the nine- member oil and gas commission to require disclosure of all chemicals injected into wells but not necessarily the proprietary formulas. But the final decision rests with the commissioners — all but one of whom, it should be noted, were recently appointed or reappointed by the governor.
David Neslin, the COGCC director, told us he believes the rule-making could be wrapped up before the end of the year, in part because several other states have already blazed a trail. “There are several different models out there” for regulators interested in further transparency, he noted, although he and his staff have no particular preference for now.
Neslin also points out that many major operators here already comply with disclosure laws in states such as Texas and Wyoming, and some post the chemicals used in their Colorado wells at FracFocus. So new disclosure rules should hardly amount to a wrenching adjustment.
They won’t end opposition in some quarters to fracking, of course. But at least they’ll reassure the public that industry isn’t hiding anything that would otherwise be cause for great concern. It’s secrecy, not disclosure, that breeds unwarranted fears.
