LEFT: A well pad in Windsor that Civitas owns has six smoke stacks that are enclosed combustion devices, which burn off volatile organic compounds and other pollutants that are a byproduct of oil and gas drilling. RIGHT: An image of the same well pad and its smoke stacks that were recorded by a thermal imaging camera shows emissions escaping from two of the enclosed combustion devices.
State regulators and oil and gas companies say those flares eliminate 95% of the harmful emissions produced by oil wells. But environmentalists aren’t so sure. “We’re definitely pushing the envelope,” Nichols said. “We are at a breaking point. We can’t afford to have any more flawed permits out there.”Kate Malloy, a spokeswoman for the Air Pollution Control Division, said her agency would not comment on flaring at oil and gas well sites because of the lawsuit.He added that the state’s operators already are heavily regulated and that they report emissions above the 95% threshold to state regulators when they happen.
“These caught our eye because Crestone is such a high-profile fracking company and we need to assure more scrutiny on them,” Nichols said of the lawsuit. “We’re still left in the dark with the efficiency because they are not performing a test afterward,” Klooster said. “Even when it’s fixed, we still don’t know if it’s working properly or not.”