Colorado officials monitoring 10 flood-related oil spills

There have been at least 10 oil spills in Colorado since flash floods hit the state last week, two of them large enough to spill more than 68,000 of oil.

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, the state’s oil and gas industry regulator, said eight of the spills are minor, but the two spills reported by the Anadarko Petroleum Corp. have dumped the equivalent of 448 barrels of condensate – a mix of oil and water – into rivers in Weld County.

Weld County is an area that produces nearly 80 per cent of the state’s oil.

There are more than 20,000 oil and gas wells in the county, and according to a Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA) official, 1,900 wells in the flood zone have been stopped.

The larger of the two spills occurred along the St. Vrain River, near Plattevile, when a tank was damaged during the floods, leaking 51,353 litres of condensate. The smaller spill was the result of a tank containing 19,873 litres of condensate, knocked over by rushing flood waters along the South Platte River, in Milliken.

Although the condensate is a mix of oil and water, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is treating the spills as if it was just oil.

“We don’t have a way to know… how much was oil and how much was water,” EPA Region 8 spokesperson Matthew Allen told Global News.

Allen explained the floods dispersed much of the oil downriver.

Because flood waters remain high, Allen said the EPA’s involvement is “limited in scope” for now, and the agency is “just assessing and evaluating” the situation at the moment.

He added the water levels make it difficult to determine if other well caps or pipelines are damaged.

READ MORE: Colorado flooding: A ‘pseudo monsoon’

Texas-based Anadarko reported the South Platte River spill to COGA on Wednesday and the St. Vrain River spill on Thursday.

The company deployed a reported 150 people “on the ground and in the air to assess critical oil and gas sites,” Andarko’s director of environmental health and safety Korby Bracken told the Greeley Tribune.

Anadarko workers tried to contain the South Platte spill by putting absorbent booms in the water, but state officials said only residual oil was collected, The Associated Press reported.

Company spokesman John Christiansen said Thursday the company was trying to reach other well sites rendered inaccessible by the flooding.

A four-inch Anadarko natural gas pipeline began leaking late last week after the ground washed away around it. Christiansen said the pipeline was shut down and the leak was contained.

The environmental damage is still being assessed, but officials in Weld County said the oil was just one among a host of contaminants caught up in floodwaters washing through communities along the Rocky Mountain foothills.

“Our concern from the county is raw sewage,” spokeswoman Jennifer Finch said.

Besides the possible environmental impact, flood damage to roads, railroads and other infrastructure will affect the region’s energy production for months to come. And analysts warn that images of flooded wellheads from the booming Wattenberg Field will increase public pressure to impose restrictions on drilling techniques such as fracking.

“There’s been massive amounts of growth in the last two years and it’s certainly expected to continue,” Caitlyn McCrimmon, a senior research associate for Calgary-based energy consultant ITG Investment Research, said of Colorado oil and gas drilling. “The only real impediment to growth in this area would be if this gives enough ammunition to environmentalists to rally support for fracking bans, which they had started working on before this.”

*With files from The Associated Press