Erie Oil Well Leak Poses Health, Environmental Concerns for Residents

Sparse communication between the oil company, Town of Erie, and residents has caused confusion and frustration, though remediation is entering final stages.

On the morning of Thursday, April 11, 2024, Sara Amodio evacuated her home.

Amodio has a chronic and rare lung condition that she receives regular treatment for, but nearby work to clean up an oil well that was discovered to be leaking in November 2023 has worsened her condition to the point that her doctors don’t want her anywhere in Erie when the site is actively being worked on.

“Once they start digging up and doing more of this remediation, I can’t be in Erie, I have to go be with my family in Kansas City,” Amodio said. “I can’t be here while they’re digging this up, it’s that serious.”

Remediating the leak

Sara Amodio stands in front of the remediation site on April 11. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Civitas Resources, a Colorado-based energy producer began to plug and abandon oil and gas well 1-24 in the Country Fields/Country Meadows neighborhood in September 2023, discovering the leak during the decommissioning process. Remediation began on April 11, but neighbors are concerned about the potential health and environmental impacts of the leak and heavy machinery stirring up contaminated soil near the residential area.

The leak has been referred to as a “historic” spill, often in contexts that misconstrue “historic” with “unprecedented,” said Gabi Rae, communications director for the Town of Erie. Historic only means that the leak began at an unknown date in the past. The Town will be discontinuing the use of that term to avoid future confusion.

As of a March 6, 2024 notice from the Town of Erie, lab testing shows no evidence of groundwater contamination from the well leak, and the contaminated soil has been removed from the site. Even though the leak is no longer active, additional excavation is necessary to remediate the site, and once additional testing confirms all contaminants are removed, the site will need to be leveled and re-vegetated.

Original contamination testing found drilling fluid, crude oil, crude oil water byproduct, and condensate — a chemical byproduct of drilling. Several organic volatile compounds in the contamination were above state regulatory levels, including benzene, one of the components of ozone, ethylbenzene, xylene, naphthalene, trimethylbenzene, and total volatile petroleum hydrocarbons.

These waste products of petroleum drilling are often referred to as BTEX compounds, and they are potentially carcinogenic, with benzene being a known carcinogen, and can lead to cancer, neurological impairment, and blood diseases, according to the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

Amodio noticed difficulty breathing in February, which aligns with when the workover rig was mobilized at the site and the soil was being disturbed by machinery. She is concerned by the fact that Civitas doesn’t know when the leak began or how long these chemicals might have been leaching into the surrounding wetland area.

She is additionally concerned that she sees residents walking their dogs and children biking to school close to the site, without any signs or fencing to warn people about the contamination.

“They have said that, ‘yes, there’s still contaminated soil there, yes, they still need to do the remediation, and they have work to do,’” Amodio said. “But there are no signs, there is no fencing. People have been back there with their dogs, kids have been playing back there because they’re curious about what’s going on.”

Based on state-regulated lab testing of soil and water samples, the contamination is not a threat to anyone nearby, nor to any water sources at this point, Rae said. The Town of Erie is not aware of any health risks that existed prior to the cleanup, particularly because the town was not made aware of contamination at the site until months after Civitas and state agencies identified it.

The remediation of well 1-24 began on April 11 after the leak was discovered by Civitas in September 2023. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Who’s job is it anyway?

Civitas, as a private company, is only required to communicate well-related information to the state and can choose to communicate with the town if it wants. This has contributed to a number of problems for both the town government and the residents.

“This is such a weird space, when a private company that is primarily regulated by the state can basically decide how much they communicate with us or the public — that really is something that they get to decide,” Rae said. “We didn’t know about the work, the leak, or the contamination until long after it was first found.”

In particular, the Town of Erie noticed non-permitted activity at the site in January 2024, which raised red flags. The town issued a stop work order and required Civitas to get a stormwater impact permit, which was granted on March 27, 2024.

Amodio herself has been dedicated to getting more information from the town and Civitas. She and members of the Canyon Creek Homeowners Association presented about the leak at a town council meeting, and afterward Amodio received her first communication from Civitas after weeks of unanswered outreach.

Even so, Civitas was not forthright in information, such as when work would be happening at the site, which Amodio needed in advance to plan her evacuation.

Civitas also wrote to her via email that machinery would only enter the site via the Erie Parkway. However, on April 10, 2024, workers were using an access point about 25 feet from her home off of Simmons St.

“I just learned that the excavator couldn’t navigate through the northern entrance and needed to use the south end,” wrote Rich Coolidge, public affairs manager at Civitas. “The other vehicles did and will continue to use the north entrance and exit, but, once the work is complete, we’ll need to remove the excavator back through the south entrance.”

Amodio worries about the machinery tracking contaminated dirt through the neighborhood.

Civitas did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The oil and gas operations are held to state regulations and overseen by the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the state’s oil and gas regulation agency, and Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment for health and safety regulations. Because most of the oil and gas developments in Erie are located on private property owned by private oil and gas companies, the town has little control over enforcing its own requirements on companies like Civitas.

A truck carries contaminated soil from the well pad to an offsite location on April 11, 2024. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

This is part of the reason the town did not post signage indicating a contaminated site, because the land is under Civitas’ jurisdiction, and at this point because the contamination has been cleaned, the only relevant signage is to warn residents about heavy machinery activity, which is posted near the site, Rae said.

But Amodio and her neighbors are frustrated by the finger-pointing between Civitas, the town, and the HOA, who all claim that things like signage are another entity’s job, which has only meant that less gets done overall.

“Who’s responsible for signage? Who’s responsible for keeping people out of that site? Who’s responsible for letting the neighborhood know?” Amodio asked.

Amodio spoke to neighbors as recently as mid-March who had no idea there was a leak at the oil well, she said. The sluggish pace and sporadic nature of information about the oil well frustrated her, and she decided to compile it all in one place.

She has been operating an updates page since she first found out about the spill with a timeline of events, compiled announcements from the town, and posted contact information for people in Town government and at Civitas who can be called or emailed for further information.

She hopes this kind of resource gives people more clarity about what’s happening at the site.

“It’s been put out very piecemeal, and then people start panicking about that, because then they think, ‘Well, what more is there?’” Amodio said.

The Town of Erie encourages all residents to fact-check information from non-official sources, including Facebook groups, with information from the Town of Erie website, ECMC, and CDPHE.

“There’s not any information that we’re deciding to withhold for any reason, as soon as we get information about any of this, we’re providing it to our public,” Rae said. “This is something that we have to do, there’s not a legal requirement for us to share any of this, but we know it’s the right thing to do.”

A sign for well 1-24 near a wetland area in Erie. The well was discovered to be leaking in September 2023. Photo by Natalie Kerr.

Final phases begin.

The Town of Erie expects post-excavation lab testing to commence around April 21, 2024. If soil passes state testing regulations, final cleanup will begin in May 2024, including placing more water barriers, removing excess material, adding topsoil, and planting seeds and vegetation to match the local environment. If it fails testing, more remediation will be required.

Neighbors are worried that this won’t be the last time something like this happens in Erie because other oil wells might be getting old and at risk of similar malfunction, Amodio said.

What is Erie’s plan moving forward with these oil and gas wells that are getting old?” Amodio questioned. “Because granted, this is all post facto for us, and we’re now dealing with the aftermath of it, but I have to imagine that there are other wells out there that would be impacting the population of Erie.”

The Environmental Services Director David Frank is in regular contact with the State and with oil and gas developers during different stages of their development, or plugging and abandoning to make contact, do walk-throughs, and gather as much information as possible about the state of the wells, Rae said.

The entire process has been incredibly disruptive and difficult for Amodio, who has had to switch chemotherapy treatments for her illness and go on medication that costs $20,000 per monthly injection since work at the oil well began.

Amodio wrote about her experience and concerns in a letter to the Town of Erie Board of Trustees and is meeting with them on April 23, 2024, to discuss the situation further.

“Erie has been my home since 2004, and it breaks my heart that my town is making me sick,” Amodio wrote.