Oil and gas regulators in Colorado will conduct a site-by-site review of 344 oil and gas sites where they say environmental consultants submitted false information about cleanup and restoration work.

Julie Murphy, Director of Energy and Carbon Management Commission, said the agency also more broadly evaluates the integrity of the data it receives. She said ECMC has changed the way information must be provided to allow staff to better determine if data has been tampered with.

The ECMC, which regulates oil and gas operations, launched its investigation following reports that two environmental consulting firms hired by companies falsified results of soil, groundwater and contamination tests at 344 oil and gas facilities between 2021 and this summer. Almost all of the acreage is in Weld County, which has nearly 16,000 active wells.

The state authority announced the investigation on 26 November. A Dec. 2 letter to ECMC from Brett Cavanagh, director of the Weld County Oil and Gas Energy Department, complained that the state was sitting on “a land use and environmental issue like this for at least four months without any communication with the relevant local government.”

Cavanagh asked for more detailed information to evaluate any potential public health risks to keep “our citizens informed.”

Murphy said she spoke with Weld County officials last week and had “really productive conversations” with Cavanagh.

The information reviewed was submitted on behalf of some of Colorado’s largest oil and gas producers to assess whether efforts to clean up spills or shut down oil and gas facilities met the state’s cleanup standards. ECMC began investigating when the companies notified the state during the summer that information may have been falsified.

“Our highest priority is to determine the risk to public health,” Murphy said. “The actual environmental impact is not an emergency in our estimation.”

The authority considers that there is no new risk to public health beyond the original conditions that prompted the work.

Eagle Environmental Consulting submitted the data on behalf of Chevron USA Inc. and Civitas Resources Inc., according to ECMC. Tasman Geosciences provided information on behalf of Occidental Petroleum. All three oil and gas producers have said they alerted ECMC when they learned of potential problems and are cooperating with the state.

ECMC said it will cooperate with appropriate law enforcement agencies regarding potential criminal and civil penalties. Murphy told commissioners Friday that the case has been referred to prosecutors for review.

ECMC declined to say which law enforcement agencies have been contacted or how much the agency is spending on the investigation. Spokeswoman Kristin Kemp said the oil and gas operators will be responsible for any necessary changes to the restoration work.