Proposed oil regulation would increase transparency on spills, violations
In mid-February, 300 barrels of crude oil and 1,000 barrels of the salty, chemical-laden water that comes out of the ground along with fossil fuel spilled from a pipeline in northwestern New Mexico and ran for 1.6 miles down a wash. An employee with the company that runs the pipeline called the Oil Conservation Division. The agency's online incident report describes an effort to stop the spread with earthen dikes and berms. Then, it snowed, covering the trail. The operator used absorbent pads and booms to try to recover some of the oil and liquids, and told the division it has plans to flush the area with fresh water to move the contaminants to a single collection point. Weeks later, the records don't show whether the cleanup of either the water or oil was successful.
While the details are often available for those who know how to dig long enough through state-run databases, zooming out to see if spills like this one are part of a trend is tough. The way the state currently reports spills and violations makes it difficult to track a spill through enforcement actions, or to see if a particular company is prone to offenses, or if a specific region has been hard hit.
A bill working its way through the legislative process, SB 186, would reinstate the division's authority to issue fines, which have been rare since 2009 when a court ruling pushed that authority to the state attorney general's office. Its sponsor, Sen. Richard Martinez, has said those fines are key for enforcing the Oil and Gas Act.
But the bill would also advance transparency around how those rules are implemented. It would require the division to publish an annual report on the number of violations, as well as the total penalties collected and for each violation, the name of the person penalized, the location, the nature of the violation and the penalty calculation. That annual report would also include defendant names, nature of violation and outcome of litigation for lawsuits filed for violating the Oil and Gas Act.
Read more: https://www.sfreporter.com/news/2019/03/07/proposed-oil-regulation-would-increase-transparency-on-spills-violations/