A Denver-based oil and gas company has reached a $21 million-plus settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and state regulators for leaking smog-causing pollutants into the air from its operations sites around the city dating back roughly four years.
As part of the agreement, PDC Energy Inc. — one of the largest oil and gas drillers along the Front Range — has agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty that will be split between the federal government and Colorado.
It will also spend $18 million on system upgrades and improved maintenance practices, monitoring and inspections to reduce emissions, as well as $1.7 million to implement environmental mitigation projects.
“This agreement will result in cleaner air in the Denver area,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in a written statement.
The settlement stems from regulators’ findings that PDC’s roughly 650 oil and gas tank batteries in the Denver area were leeching volatile organic compounds into the air. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said it found violations dating back to 2013.
Volatile organic compounds contribute to the formation of smog or ground-level ozone — already a problem for the metro area — and can lead to respiratory illnesses, such as pneumonia and bronchitis.
PDC, as part of its agreement with the government, has agreed to evaluate the design and capacity of its vapor control systems and to modify them as necessary to ensure they are not emitting the harmful VOCs. As part of that analysis, the company will have to make periodic infrared camera inspections to identify any emissions.
The environmental mitigation projects PDC has agreed to undertake are slated to reduce emissions of ozone precursors from the company’s well pads.
In all, according to the EPA, the fixes should reduce volatile organic compound emissions by more than 1,600 tons per year. PDC already has begun work as part of the agreement, officials say, which must be completed on a phased schedule with a deadline of June 30, 2019.
“This agreement is the result of months of cooperative conversations with state and EPA regulators and builds upon our years of proactive work, which includes internal assessment and an ongoing remediation program,” PDC President and Chief Executive Officer Bart Brookman said in a written statement. “We have put a plan in place that will continue to reduce PDCs’ air emissions in Colorado’s (Denver-Julesburg) Basin and reflects our strong commitment to protecting Colorado’s environment.”
The EPA announced the settlement, and a separate one involving Exxon Mobile in Texas and Louisiana, in a media call Tuesday, pointing to the actions as proof the Trump administration is taking clean air seriously.
“We will be enforcing environmental laws in this administration, and that’s not just my message, that’s the message straight from the top,” said Patrick Traylor, the EPA’s deputy assistant administrator in its Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “… These two settlements are good examples.”
However, reports to the contrary have shown the EPA, under President Donald Trump and Pruitt, have been less active on enforcement compared to previous administrations.
In August, a report from the Environmental Integrity Project found Trump’s EPA collected 60 percent less in civil penalties from polluters in its first six months when compared to the three previous administrations. The New York Times reported last month that Pruitt was threatening to undermine the U.S. Department of Justice’s Environment and Natural Resources Division — which enforces environmental laws — by cutting off a major funding source.
Officials with the Justice Department and EPA pushed back during Monday’s call on the notion the agencies are being more lenient under Trump, pointing to billions of dollars in enforcement actions it has made since January.
