Oil and gas companies operating in Colorado have filed hundreds of environmental impact reports with “falsified” laboratory data since 2021, according to state regulators.
Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission (ECMC) said on December 13 that contractors from Chevron and Oxy had submitted reports with fraudulent data for at least 344 oil and gas wells in the state, painting a misleading picture of their pollution levels. Consultants from a third company, Civitas, had also submitted forms with falsified information for an unspecified number of wells, regulators said.
Some reports, conducted and submitted by consulting groups Eagle Environmental Consulting and Tasman Geosciences, obscured levels of dangerous pollutants in nearby soils, including arsenic, which is linked to heart disease and a variety of cancers, and benzene, which the committee linked to leukemia and other blood diseases, among other pollutants.
“I believe that the level of alleged fraud warrants some criminal investigation,” Julie Murphy, director of the ECMC, said in November.
Regulators first announced that widespread data falsification had occurred in November, noting that the companies had voluntarily disclosed the issue months earlier. Last week, as officials specified which locations were known to be affected, the New Mexico attorney general’s office said it was also gathering information about the advisory groups’ testing methods.
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“This highlights the entire problem of our regulatory agency relying on operator-reported data,” said Heidi Leathwood, climate policy analyst for 350 Colorado, an environmental nonprofit. “The public needs to know that they are in real danger from these carcinogens.”
Paula Beasley, a spokesperson for Chevron, wrote via email that an independent contractor — identified by ECMC as Denver-based Eagle Environmental Consulting — notified the company in July that an employee had manipulated laboratory data.
“Upon becoming aware of this fraud, Chevron immediately initiated an investigation into these incidents and continues to fully cooperate and work closely with the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission,” Beasley wrote. “Chevron is shocked and dismayed that a third-party contractor would deliberately falsify data and submit it to state officials.”
Jennifer Price, a spokesperson for Oxy, also wrote via email that a third-party environmental consultant notified the company of employee-altered lab reports and associated forms. “Upon notification, we have reported the issue to Colorado’s Energy and Carbon Management Commission and are reassessing the identified sites to confirm they meet state environmental and health standards,” she added.
In emailed responses, Tasman Geosciences spokesperson Andy Boian said the changes to Tasman’s data were the work of a single employee, were “minor” in nature and posed “no risk to human health”. But Kristin Kemp, ECMC’s community relations manager, said the commission’s investigation had not yet confirmed whether that was true.
“What we can already say is that the extent of data falsification is enormous, from seemingly innocent to having a greater impact,” she said.
Boian also said Tasman has “taken legal action” against his former employee.
Civitas and Eagle Environmental Consulting did not respond to requests for comment.
Across the U.S., cash-strapped state regulators have long outsourced environmental assessments to fossil fuel companies, which themselves report their own ground-level impacts. But the revelations about widespread data tampering in Colorado – the fourth largest oil and gas producing state in the US – raise questions about whether operators and their advisors can truly exercise self-policing.
“It’s clear: If you want the oil and gas industry to pay you money for a service, you better not run into any major problems or they’re not going to pay you,” said Sharon Wilson, a former oil and gas industry consultant. gas sector. gas industry who is now an anti-fracking activist in Texas. She said she left her position after her employer’s findings, which she described as reliable, were routinely ignored by the industry.
It’s not uncommon for hired consultants to misrepresent figures in ways that benefit their clients in the fossil fuel industry, says Anthony Ingraffea, professor emeritus of civil engineering at Cornell University. In 2020, he published a study that found widespread discrepancies in the way methane emissions were reported at fracking sites in Pennsylvania.
“Make sure that the responsibility – the regulatory responsibility, the moral responsibility – is as uncertain as your lawyers can imagine it to be,” he said of the practice of outsourcing environmental impact studies. “In other words, point the finger at someone else.”
In an email, Kemp said companies, contractors and regulators support each other like legs on a three-legged stool, trusting each other to do their part. She explained that regulators such as the ECMC will always be at least somewhat reliant on self-reported data, due to the impracticality of monitoring hundreds of operators across thousands of locations – but that existing processes may need to be rethought.
“ECMC’s regulatory workflow is based on the expectation that people comply with the law, with reasonable measures in place to ensure that this is the case,” she wrote. “But if we determine that we can no longer broadly rely on receiving accurate information, we need action – and the scope and scale of that action will be determined by what we learn during the ongoing investigation.”
According to the commission, 278 of the wells disclosed so far for which the information was falsified are operated by Chevron, which contracts with Eagle Environmental. Sixty-six are owned by Oxy, a Houston-based energy company that contracts with Tasman Geosciences. Civitas, which also worked with Eagle Environmental Consulting, disclosed that it had also submitted falsified data, but has not yet shared information about which of its sites were affected.
Most of the affected wells are in rural Weld County, northeastern Colorado, where 82% of the state’s oil production occurs and more than half of its gas wells. However, regulators revealed that some of the sites with falsified data are within miles of Fort Collins, Greeley and Boulder. About half are no longer operational and have been deemed safely remediated by the state.
So far, the only sites shared with the public are those self-reported by the operators and not discovered by the ECMC. “It is likely that more sites will become known as the ongoing investigation unfolds,” Kemp wrote.
Eagle and Tasman, the consultants who allegedly provided false data, also work out of state and raised concerns that their employees may have provided fraudulent data elsewhere.
“We believe this potential is of such danger and magnitude that the situation warrants further investigation,” said Mariel Nanasi, executive director of the Santa Fe-based nonprofit New Energy Economy.
Lauren Rodriguez, communications director for the New Mexico attorney general’s office, confirmed on Dec. 16 that the office was indeed investigating the allegations surrounding the advisory groups’ work.
“The only Tasman person involved in the data change did not do any work for Tasman [New Mexico]or other states,” Boian said by email.
Kemp, the ECMC spokesman, said it is still unclear why two independent third-party consultants came forward with self-reporting of data falsification around the same time. But the consequences can be serious: Forging an official document filed with a public office is a Class 5 felony in Colorado, punishable by one to three years in prison and up to $100,000 in fines. The ECMC will also consider fines and other enforcement actions, she said.
The Colorado Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the ongoing investigation. And while the changes originated with the consultants hired, Kemp noted that the responsibility ultimately falls to oil and gas operators.
“Regardless of who is to blame, the responsibility lies with the operator,” she said.
