An oil and gas company in La Plata County has been accused of not fixing a pipeline that leaked an unknown amount of chemicals into Ute Creek – a tributary of the Los Pinos River – earlier this year.
On June 21, the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission issued a Notice of Alleged Violation – essentially an official allegation an operator has violated a rule – to Maralex Disposal LLC for a spill that occurred in March.
Officials from neither the COGCC nor Maralex, a company that disposes produced water from natural-gas and oil wells, responded to multiple requests for comment for this story.
According to state records, on March 5, a contracted trucking company notified Maralex that “produced water” levels were diminishing at its gathering system facility, which prompted the Ignacio-based company to inspect its underground pipeline.
That same day, Maralex representatives found that the pipeline – which carries the chemical concoction used in fracking – was leaking and causing water to come to the surface.
In the company’s report to the state, Maralex said all wells that contributed water to the line were immediately shut in, and by March 8 the leak was completely isolated.
However, Maralex representatives could not account for when the spill started or the amount of fluids that dumped into Ute Creek, which is 25 to 50 feet away from the pipeline. The creek is in southeastern La Plata County, near Ignacio.
State documents show produced water entered Ute Creek at two locations, and water samples taken by Maralex downstream of the spill reported higher levels of bicarbonates and some total dissolved solids than upstream samples.
The total surface area affected by the spill also is unclear. Maralex reported the water hole directly above the point of escape was 3½ feet deep and 6 feet in surface diameter. The operator said it was able to recover 7½ barrels just from that spot.
Although the spill was eventually contained, the state contends in its June 21 notice of violation that Maralex has not identified a root cause of the incident, and failed to fix the pipeline in a manner that would prevent future spills.
The state also reprimanded the local operator for not following its 24-hour notification protocol, highlighting the fact it took Maralex four days to report the spill.
Maralex has 28 days to respond to the state from the notice’s day of issue on June 21. It is unclear if the company has compiled with that order.
The property owners, listed as the Clark Durango Family Trust, could also not be reached for comment.
It’s not the first time Maralex has run afoul with the oil and gas regulators.
In March 2014, the company was issued a similar notice, and ultimately fined about $50,000 for illegally constructing two unlined pits in La Plata County, which posed “an immediate threat to the environment,” state records show.
In August 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency fined Maralex Disposal $80,000 for several violations related to a disposal injection well in southern La Plata County.
And in Mesa and Garfield counties, Maralex Resources, Inc., a sister company, had several violations for wells leaking thousands of gallons of fluids and gas in 2013. The state, in that case, also fined the Maralex $50,000.
The president of Maralex is listed as A.M. O’Hare. He, too, is responsible for another $94,000 fine in October 2014 after he denied government officials access to inspect the company’s facilities, threatening an inspector that he had instructed his children to shoot any trespassers on-site.
jromeo@durangoherald.com