Last week regulators in Colorado and Texas established rules governing the disclosure of the contents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) fluids used in their states.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) and the Railroad Commission of Texas (RRC) rules each include provisions to protect fluid contents that industry members deem to be trade secrets.

The Colorado rules are to take effect in April. “These rules require disclosure of all chemicals, not just hazardous chemicals, and for all chemicals they will provide the identity and its CAS [Chemical Abstracts Service registry] number or similar information, and its concentration,” COGCC Director David Neslin said. “They also provide appropriate protection for legitimate trade secrets, and that’s important — not just legally, but also as part of our current economy.”

Neslin said the COGCC staff feels that the rules could serve as a model for other states, but “more important, they are the right rules for Colorado.”

“The public expects and deserves full transparency from the oil and gas industry,” said Environmental Defense Fund President Fred Krupp. “Colorado has taken a critical step toward building the public trust.” He said Colorado has built on the experience of several other states, including Wyoming, Arkansas, Texas and Montana.

In the end, representatives of environmental and industry stakeholder groups both endorsed the rules. Colorado Oil and Gas Association CEO Tisha Conoly Schuller said the industry group and its individual members all support the rules. She lauded all the parties for “being willing to come to the table in a meaningful way during the course of four months.”

COGCC had been urged to require predisclosure on the fracking chemicals, something critics say Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper advocated last summer, but Neslin cautioned that because companies often change fracking formulas right up until the time chemical mixtures are actually injected into the ground, current proposed rules don’t require predisclosure from the operating companies.

The new rules in Colorado allow operators 60 days after a well is started to disclose the chemicals being used, and Neslin defended giving this much time by reminding the commission that “disclosure is not the first line of environmental defense.” He contends the first line is assuring the integrity of the well bore, next imposing additional rules and regulations on the drilling and third requiring operators to complete periodic groundwater tests.

Current Colorado rules require lists of drilling chemicals to be maintained onsite at well sites and turned over when requested within 24 hours to emergency responders. There is also a voluntary program for operators to use in disclosing chemicals on the Internet (www.fracfocus.org), but critics contend that it is sparsely used. In reaction, the cities of Grand Junction and Palisade, CO, have adopted their own predisclosure requirements for chemicals used in drilling within their city boundaries.

In Texas the RRC followed the direction of state lawmakers who earlier this year this year passed legislation requiring such disclosure (see NGI, June 6).

The rule will require Texas operators to disclose on a national public website all the ingredients and water volumes used to frack wells in Texas. The Hydraulic Frac Fluid Disclosure Rule will be required for wells for which the RRC has issued an initial drilling permit on or after Feb. 1. Before the rule passed, some Texas operators conducting hydraulic fracturing were voluntarily entering chemical data into the public website FracFocus for about half of all wells in Texas undergoing hydraulic fracturing.

“…[W]e have successfully fulfilled our commitment from earlier this year to ensure that Texans know every single ingredient used in the hydraulic fracturing process,” said RRC Chair Elizabeth Ames Jones.

Texas and Colorado are among several states that have embraced requirements for the public disclosure of frack fluid contents. Late last year the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission enacted disclosure requirements (see NGI, Dec. 13, 2010). And in Louisiana the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Office of Conservation recently began taking comments on its own proposal (see NGI, Sept. 5).

Additionally, Pennsylvania and Wyoming have frack fluid disclosure requirements, and Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality in May announced new regulations for high-volume fracking operations that use more than 100,000 gallons of fluid.

At least two federal agencies — the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Interior — are looking at future rules guiding fracking and general shale development.

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