This is a transcript of the June 26, 2025 update of the Bishop Well Incident by the ECMC Commissioners in a special meeting, published to YouTube.
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Presentation Overview
Greg Deranleau: So good morning again. Thank you for having myself and staff here today to present an update to the commission on the Bishop Well incident. My name is Greg Deranleau. I’m the Deputy Director of Operations. Today’s special hearing is to provide an update regarding the well control incident south of Galeton in Weld County.
Before I begin with our prepared notes, I want to take a moment and recognize this has been a big topic for a lot of people. It’s been a lot of work for our staff, our team, and I also want to recognize that this incident has impacted many residents in the Galeton community. In particular, the residents who have been displaced and continue to—some that continue to be displaced. They are experiencing significant hardship because of this.
I’m extremely grateful for the first responders who led the initial response to get the blowout contained and keep the community safe during that time. I’m very grateful to our team of expert staff who have remained dedicated and dutiful as they perform the work required to oversee the remediation and enforcement of this incident.
Also, commissioners, thank you again for the opportunity to provide another update. I’m providing this update, which is the fourth update to the commission on this incident, because as you may recall at the prior updates, we committed to returning quarterly or when there is timely information to share, and today there is timely information to share.
So I recognize that I’m speaking to more than just you commissioners, and there are a lot of folks tuning in for this update. The recordings from the first three updates as well as lots more Galeton-specific information is posted online on our website at a central and hopefully easy-to-use web page devoted to this incident. It can be found on ECMC’s library under the special projects, and I’ve put a link in this presentation which will be made available.
The web page is intended to provide plain language summary of the massive amounts of data that are publicly available on our COGIS database, and the web page has links to the data as well as links to other pertinent information.
Today’s hearing will be uploaded on our YouTube channel. The recording in this slide deck will also be updated to the web page that’s shown here.
We are attempting to be as transparent as possible, pushing information out onto our website as quickly as we are able. Our team of community liaison is also available to impacted residents or members of the community and the public who seek help understanding this incident.
Before I go into details, it would be completely inappropriate if I did not thank ECMC’s community relations manager, Kristen Kemp, for her tireless work to keep information about this incident flowing to the people who need it. Whether that’s responding to media inquiries so the broader Colorado community has a better understanding of the situation or engaging directly one-on-one with affected and displaced residents, Kristen has been passionate and compassionate about getting factual, thorough, and detailed information from the technical team to folks who would prefer not to hear jargon.
Today, there are several important updates to share with you. Those topics are on your screen. I’m co-presenting with my highly capable colleagues, Mike Leonard, quality assurance and quality control manager, and Kyle Waggoner, the East Environmental Supervisor.
We have about 45 minutes of prepared remarks. I understand there’s public anticipation of this hearing, so I’ll share upfront that our remarks include a timely update to the commission about enforcement actions our agency has now taken. This morning, ECMC issued a notice of alleged violation, also called an NOAV, to Noble Energy.
In order to accurately describe the NOAV and put it into context, that’s what our presentation is designed to do today. Obviously, you all can ask questions as we go, but we will have time for questions at the end.
Timeline and Regulatory Perspective
Greg Deranleau: So I’ll dive in with a timeline and, recognizing that we’re a bit over two months out from the incident and there’s a long time ahead of us too, I wanted to sort of level set where we’ve started from, where we’ve come from, and I want to describe this from a regulatory perspective, recognizing that the regulatory perspective is not the perspective of, let’s say, an impacted resident who remains displaced or from the operator who is managing their response and recovery actions across the area. This is sort of founded in our statute, our rules, our jurisdiction. And it also doesn’t take into effect into account other regulatory agencies’ requirements, and obviously this timeline is not comprehensive.
So starting at the left of your screen, on April 6, 2025, the Bishop well control event occurred at the Bishop A07-01 pad. The ECMC issued location ID is 483510.
The well that this incident occurred at is the Bishop A18-742, which has an API number of 05-123-52071. The reason all those numbers are important is because that’s how you find things in our COGIS database. The operator of record of this oil and gas location and the well is Noble Energy Inc., a subsidiary of Chevron Corporation.
What Happened
So what happened? There was a failure of the designed well control barriers and a loss of control over the pressure within the wellbore, resulting in an uncontrolled flow called a blowout of fluids. During the blowout, wellbore fluids and fluids native to the formation such as condensate, crude oil, and natural gas were emitted.
When the incident started, it was quickly brought into the unified incident command team, which was composed of Weld County First Responders, Galeton Fire Protection, Chevron, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which oversaw the initial emergency responses during the incident.
Contractors working for Chevron successfully stopped the fluid flow from the well on April 10th, 2025.
And on April 11th, the response team declared that the well control incident was successfully secured, meaning they had confidence in the containment at the wellhead.
That declaration returned one, the location; two, the Bishop well; and three, the spill of exploration production waste to the jurisdiction of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission in accordance with the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Act.
Of course, ECMC is the state agency with statutory authority to regulate oil and gas operations, and that includes the investigation and cleanup of any oil and gas spill.
Remediation Process
Remediation for the Bishop incident is a multi-step, multifaceted process. The operator is responsible for all cleanup activities. That work is regulated and enforced by us, the ECMC.
ECMC holds operators accountable to the state of Colorado’s strict and protective remediation standards.
And I’ll note, as I have before, that you, the commission, often refer to our rules as the most protective in the nation. And generally when we talk about that, we’re referring to our stringent permitting process. And I will remind us here again today that our highly protective mission-driven rules guide our regulatory oversight of operations and remediation standards too.
Key Timeline Events
And so now moving on to the third date on the screen. In accordance with state rules, Chevron produced an environmental sampling and analysis plan that ECMC staff reviewed and approved and posted on April 17th.
The environmental sampling analysis plan or ESAP is a scientific and technical plan for the collection and chemical analyses of environmental samples for surface water, groundwater, and soil sampling activities and prepared in this case specific to this incident.
Three weeks after the incident, on April 25th, ECMC issued a notice to operators regarding pressure management safety based on the information we knew at the time based on our follow-up investigation to this event. As a regulatory authority, ECMC uses NTOs—notice to operators—to communicate timely and important information to operators and may require certain actions be taken as necessary and as part of ECMC’s regulatory program.
This NTO required operators to conduct an assessment of their processes and wellhead procedures during the time period between drilling rig release and the start of production and to report that assessment to ECMC. Today, Mike Leonard will be describing the submittals we received in response to the NTO.
Next, on May 1st, ECMC approved Chevron’s initial site investigation remediation work plan or form 27 initial. The work plan describes the ways in which impacts from the incident will be remediated and how the remediation will be monitored and validated. Within the first two months of the incident, Chevron has submitted more than 1,000 analytical reports to ECMC documenting thousands of sample points and analyses.
My colleague Kyle Waggoner will describe this work in more detail later in this presentation.
On June 10th, Chevron submitted the required supplemental accident report or form 22 supplemental, which included their root cause analysis.
On the last date on the screen today, June 26, ECMC issued a notice of alleged violation. Again, we will describe that NOAV in more detail during this presentation. We’ll now spend the remainder of our presentation outlining the events described, and we will also describe what happens next.
Visual Comparison
For those of you who need a visual, here’s a before and now photo. On the left during the blowout, you can see the uncontrolled flow coming from the well, and you can see the mist of fine fluids leaving the location.
On the right, you can see how the pad looked earlier this week. All equipment had been decontaminated and demobilized from the site. The pad surface materials made of road base were stripped and replaced. And now crews have returned to work on the wells as you can see by the presence of a workover rig in the upper portion of that photo.
And I’ll note that during all this, a killdeer made its nest on the pad, and a buffer has been put in place around it to minimize the disturbance to the bird in the nest. And that’s the round circle you see on the sort of left-hand side of the right-hand picture.
Agency Collaboration
So, just to reiterate, ECMC is the agency that regulates oil and gas operations at the location, the well, and the cleanup of exploration and production waste in accordance with Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Acts.
While we are the lead regulatory authority, I think it’s also important to note that we don’t work in a vacuum. And therefore, I’d like to recognize other agencies who have contributed and collaborated and continue to do so on this complex response.
Specifically, federal agencies such as the EPA, as mentioned, and also the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. At the state level, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment—several groups in their several divisions in their department have worked with us including air quality control division, water quality control division.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife has been engaged in this process. Colorado Department of Agriculture has been engaged in this as well as Colorado State Patrol during the initial response time. At the local level, Weld County has dedicated resources to this project, including their public health department, their oil and gas department, their emergency services department, and the sheriff. And at the even more local level, the Galeton Fire Rescue staff and team were instrumental in the early days of this response.
As you can see, it takes a village, and a lot of people have worked very hard to keep the community safe and share resources to ensure the best response possible to a tough situation.
Broadly, at this stage of the incident, there are two equally significant components to our role as regulatory authority. First, the oversight of remediation, which continues to occupy significant time, effort, and resources, and second, the enforcement process, which we’ve really just begun with the issuance of the NOAV.
Now I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to my colleague Kyle Waggoner to describe the remediation efforts, and commissioners, I will just reiterate—and I think you’ve heard me say this again—that our team has been amazing. Kyle Abdul El Najdy, Rick Allison, Crystal Hel, Killian Collins, Chris Benes, Adam Burns, Alex Fischer, and Jason Gomez have all done a superior job overseeing the response and ongoing remediation work.
Truly, Colorado is fortunate to have this level of expertise and passion in our staff.
Remediation Efforts
Kyle Waggoner (Eastern Environmental Supervisor): Thank you, Greg.
So, as Greg mentioned, I’m Kyle Waggoner. I’m the Eastern Environmental Supervisor. I’ve been here now for 2 and a half years.
I know Greg mentioned our mission, which he’s changed the slide to, and I don’t want to restate it, but I do want to point out because it’s very important to me that it is our mission to protect the public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources.
Project Management Approach
So, how do we make this a manageable assessment and remediation project? Otherwise put, how do you eat an elephant? And the answer to that is a bite at a time.
Due to the large geographical area to investigate, which is a 1 and a half mile radius—I know you can’t see it on this screenshot, but there’s a half mile, one mile, and a half mile, the outer portion. So to put that in perspective, a 1 and a half mile radius is roughly equal to 7 square miles or put as roughly equal to 4,500 acres. A large assessment area.
For this reason, the assessment area has been divided into about 300 what we call T-number parcels to identify those. And the numbers that are assigned to them are random, and as you can see in the map, it’s outlined in yellow—each individual T parcel.
There is one primary form 19 that has been approved for the initial remediation project, which is remediation project number 40251 for the actual bishop well. Then there will be around 300 form 27 initials, one for each parcel for the investigation and assessment of those.
Sampling Analysis Plans
So as Greg mentioned, the SAPs—we call them the sampling analysis plans. We have multiple sampling analysis plans, and we commonly refer to these as SAPs for short that we have approved for this remediation project. I will mention at this point that they can be revised for each individual parcel, but we have a main approved—these SAPs, while not typically required on small spills and remediation projects, these in-depth plans were necessary and appropriate for the management of various sampling programs required for this complex remediation scope.
The SAPs were designed to assess any possible contamination from the Bishop release, including the frack fluids. In addition, we collaborated with our peers at our sister agencies during their development. That went very well.
In summary, each SAP, as you can see referenced on the slide, goes into greater detail regarding each media being sampled. And quickly, I’ll just cover them:
- The ESAP, as Greg mentioned, is primarily for the soil and surface water sampling.
- The WWSAP addresses the domestic and monitor well sampling. So groundwater.
- The CWSAP is for structures after cleaning, which I think this is new and novel as far as confirmation sampling and the creation of the CWSAP.
- And my favorite abbreviation is the ASAP. That is the agronomic sampling analysis plan, which is designed for the plant health sampling program.
And so finally but not least, the residential soil sampling location plan—the one on the bottom that ties all the SAPs together to mainly determine where we’re collecting each sample. So it’s a road map to show where are the primary areas we’re going to sample under these SAPs.
So the requirements for the type of samples and media to collect is dependent on the initial assessment samples results and also on the site-specific specifics based on what is actually at each of the parcels. They are all unique and different. So it’s site-specific catered.
Current Status and Statistics
So on the next slide, to give you a snapshot of where we are at now, I’ve included some statistics, and literally 10 minutes before this meeting, this first slide is obsolete. So that kind of shows you how fluid this project is. It’s a lot of moving parts.
So it’s not 165 new facilities that have been created by ECMC for each T parcel. We have now created 232 so far new facilities. So that would be of that estimated 300, and we were anticipating 80 more to be requested this week. But we just received 18 requests for new facility IDs for these spill and release T parcels.
So to date, we have received over 100 forms, and that includes 19s and 27s that have been submitted to the ECMC, and we have approved those.
Of those, 46 have been form 19 supplementals, and 10 of those are still in process right now. So there’s been 66 form 27 initials, and those are for the individual T parcels. So it’s the remediation work plan for those. And then 10—and one is still in process.
And then 10 form 27 supplementals are pending review, which include—which we received these late last week. I think it was Friday, but these actually include a lot of information, a lot of data. These 10 27 supplementals include the sample location maps, the cumulative analytical tables, and the third-party lab verified analytical data.
So lots of data coming through starting as of last week as far as analytical data.
On-Site Oversight
So where are we now? So ECMC staff have been on site from the beginning and continued to be present almost every day. So I do want to point out Abdul Elnajdi has done a fabulous job on site. He’s put a lot of time and effort, and he has been and will continue to be the primary contact and the primary person on site.
Currently, we are not on site every day but at least three days a week. Our team is and has been supported by a third-party contractor. Our third-party on-site contractor has provided critical support for the ECMC, conducting daily observations of site-wide activities that include witnessing Chevron sampling and actually collecting split samples of their samples for analysis and providing observational reports to the ECMC.
We greatly appreciate them.
Sampling Statistics
So on the next slide, we are going to go over some statistics that have been conducted by Chevron. So the first bullet point is as of June 13th. So to give you a perspective:
- 730 surface water samples have been collected
- 2,203 soil samples have been collected
- 475 air samples have been collected
And they’ve been conducting what they call a rapid assessment technique—essentially observations, ground observations—and there’s been 28,956 of those conducted.
And of those, on the agricultural properties, 4,957 acres have been covered, which encompasses 115 properties, and for residential, approximately 297 acres have been covered, and that encompasses 107 properties.
In addition, as of June 17th, 93 groundwater samples have been collected.
Timeline for Closure
On the next slide is where are we headed? What is the timeline for closure?
This is one of the benefits of breaking this project down as described earlier into the individual T-number parcels. The timeline is variable and based solely on the individual T-number parcel remediation assessment results.
The form 27 can be closed and receive a no further action determination independently without waiting for all the parcels to be closed. In fact, of the form 27 initials we have received to date for the T number parcels, they have been varying estimated remediation closure dates—most of which I’ve seen are this year in 2025 is the estimated time to receive no further action.
That being said, some T number parcels will take longer depending on the site-specific conditions based upon appropriate site-specific remediation approach.
So we at the ECMC, the environmental group, we are data driven, we are quantitative, we require analytical sample results amongst other things, which determines where we go next.
To date, 29 monitor wells have been installed near the Bishop pad, and when deemed necessary, additional subsurface investigations will be required that may include the installation of additional monitor wells.
Our commitment is to continue to provide regulatory oversight, which includes technical expertise, on-site support, contractor support, and looking into the future, what are we expecting? So a lot of site data has been collected. So we are anticipating a lot of site data to be submitted via our form process. What does that mean for us? A lot of forms to review, a lot of data to review.
However, these are the necessary steps to appropriately document the path towards a no further action.
So with that, now I turn it over to my colleague, Mr. Leonard, who will describe the NTO process.
Notice to Operators (NTO) Process
Mike Leonard (QAQC Manager): Thank you, Kyle. Good day, commissioners. Mike Leonard, QAQC manager here at ECMC. Next slide, please.
So, as deputy director Deranleau mentioned earlier, as a result of this incident, ECMC issued a notice to operators, or an NTO, on April 25th. I’d like to take a few minutes to discuss the responses from that NTO. But first, I think it’s important for us to talk about or define what an NTO is and what it’s not. Next slide, please.
What is an NTO?
So, ECMC and formerly COGCC have issued NTOs for many years. And again, as deputy director Deranleau relayed, as a regulatory authority, ECMC uses NTOs to communicate timely and important information to operators and may require certain action be taken as necessary.
To simplify that a little bit, they’re a message to the operating community that ECMC has identified something that needs to be addressed or clarified to the operators. These messages can be statewide, or they can be area or situational specific.
It’s important to note they are not rule or rule making. Again, they’re designed to deliver information to assist in compliance and help with public health, safety, welfare, and environmental protections.
They do have the potential to become policies or guidance, but the idea is really to get this information out quickly to the operating community.
On April 25th, the ECMC used information it had regarding the incident to issue a Notice to Operators (NTO). The investigation was still ongoing at that time and the root cause had not yet been determined.
It was clear to ECMC that a notice for operators to review their procedures during post-stimulation operations was necessary. The NTO required operators to conduct an assessment of their processes and wellhead procedures during the time period between drilling rig release and start of production, and then report that assessment to ECMC.
The goal of this NTO was to ensure proper application of technical, operational, and organizational processes, specifications, and solutions to reduce risk to health, safety, wildlife, and environment during pivotal times in the development of a well.
As with all NTOs, it reflects ECMC’s mission to regulate the development and production of oil and gas in a manner that protects public health, safety, welfare, and the environment and wildlife resources.
Within the NTO, there was a specific request from 42 operators who at that time had active permits in the system, and those responses were asked to be returned by May 9th, 2025.
In total, ECMC received 52 submissions, including responses from operators who clarified they don’t currently hold active permits in Colorado but offered to provide information if necessary.
Of the requested responses, 38 of the 42 operators with active permits responded within the given deadline and met the intent of the NTO. All of the responses varied in content. Some were very detailed with schematics and drawings and meeting notes. Others relayed that the message of the NTO had been delivered to staff and contractors and procedures were reviewed. Some offered they don’t stimulate wells and the NTO was not applicable, and still others had no plans to drill any wells.
We did have one response that did not meet the NTO request parameters. That operator was contacted and after discussion, it was revealed that they were planning to abandon those permits that they had in the system and not drill those wells.
We also reached out again to the four operators who did not respond. One operator has been in communication with ECMC and has revealed they’re not going to hydraulically stimulate the oil stage. One of the operators with the permit had only one permit in Lincoln County, and wells in that county are not typically stimulated. One of the permits was for a mine vent remediation project. Obviously those won’t be hydraulically fractured. The fourth operator has not responded but in that area typically does not perform this type of well procedure.
Also after review of the 38 submissions, eight were flagged for further review. These eight either needed clarification on how they relayed the NTO to the appropriate staff or they had some minor inconsistencies in the procedures that they had offered. All eight responded back to ECMC with acceptable details.
In conclusion, NTOs are a really effective tool to disperse needed information from ECMC. The operators do appreciate ECMC flagging these situations for importance, and they do enhance the dialogue between ECMC and the operators.
Root Cause Analysis Presentation – Deputy Director
Thank you Kyle and Mike. I would just note as I was listening to Kyle and Mike speak, I recognized that there’s a lot of forms mentioned, a lot of jargon, and a lot of acronyms that we use. Again, as I mentioned earlier, our website does try to help with that plain language interpretation of those and descriptions of the forms. So hopefully using those tools, folks can get a good idea of the meaning of those tools.
As I mentioned earlier, on June 10th, 2025, Chevron submitted their supplemental accident report Form 22 containing their root cause analysis.
First, what is a root cause analysis? Simply put, a root cause analysis is a method used to determine exactly why an incident happened. The idea is to drill down, pun intended, into each step of a process and understand exactly what led to an incident.
As is typically the case, there are numerous causative factors and contributing factors when evaluating this particular incident. The reason that we require operators to undertake this type of analysis is so that they can determine what measures may need to be taken to minimize the likelihood of recurrence.
As we’ve said many times now, well control incidents are rare. The specific cause of this incident as reported by Chevron is related directly to proprietary equipment and improper assembly of the equipment, meaning it’s not even the same root cause as other well control incidents that have happened in the past in Colorado or elsewhere.
Chevron submitted its root cause analysis on June 10th, and I do want to note that as those root cause analyses are developed, they may point to other parties on site or other issues external to Chevron specifically or the operator conducting the root cause specifically.
But I want to note that importantly, regardless of who or what causes an accident, spill, leak, or other incident on an oil and gas location, ECMC holds the operator of record accountable for the operations conducted on their location as the control of the location is solely in their hands.
So ECMC has reviewed the root cause analysis that we’ve received. We do not dispute its findings and we believe there is a broader conversation to be had surrounding the on-site operations and contributing factors. Specifically, if in the future there are operations in similar situations, such as during the changing of wellheads, we can and should collectively discuss what other protocols, on-site operations, or other protective barriers could and should be implemented.
We’re working on this and addressing it with operators in conjunction with the information we received from the NTO that Mr. Leonard just presented. The root cause analysis and the NTO are important components to our investigation to help us ensure safety, which is paramount.
I do think it’s important to provide the technical details of Chevron’s root cause analysis at this hearing and I believe that we can discuss it without getting too deep in the jargon. However, commissioners, please stop me on the next two slides if you want further clarification.
Technical Details of Root Cause Analysis
This slide is taken directly from Chevron’s submission on Form 22. They’ve listed two root causes and two specific contributing factors. They also list the actions they’ve taken and will take to prevent recurrence. I’ll walk through these and then I’ll show their depiction of the wellhead which illustrates the situation.
As noted in their root cause analysis, it’s important to recognize that this incident occurred during the process of installing a production wellhead or tree on the well. This operation followed the hydraulic fracturing of the well, which induced high pressure into the formation. It followed snubbing the well with tubing, which means they installed tubing into the pressurized well through a blowout prevention equipment or BOP.
In the production tree installation process, the BOP stack is removed and the wellhead relies on the previously installed equipment, the tubing hanger assembly, to maintain control of the well.
Their first identified root cause has to do with improper assembly of two key pieces of equipment: the landing joint and running tool, which led to the tubing hanger not being properly set in the wellhead. To prevent this in the future, this assembly will be made up in the shop to proper torque specifications instead of made up in the field.
Their second identified root cause is that the single barrier, the tubing hanger, between the pressurized formation and the surface failed because it was not properly set. To prevent this in the future, Chevron will use downhole packers during this wellhead transition process.
Chevron includes additional contributing factors including procedural gaps during the tubing hanger installation process and a lack of a positive indicator that the installation was successful. Chevron is continuing to evaluate these factors to ensure preventative measures will be taken. However, it’s important to note that the installation and testing of the downhole packers prior to this phase of work will provide a secondary barrier against this happening again.
Wellhead Diagram Explanation
A picture being worth a thousand words, this diagram is taken again directly from the root cause analysis submitted by Chevron. On the left-hand diagram, Diagram A, it shows the wellbore schematics properly assembled before the blowout prevention equipment BOP is removed and the production tree is installed.
On the right, Diagram B at the top shows how that tubing hanger mechanism is supposed to work when properly installed. As you can see, the orange energizing ring moves down and engages the lock ring. When properly engaged, that secures the tubing hanger even when there is no BOP or production tree in place.
On the bottom right in Diagram C, it shows what happened at the Bishop A18-742 well. Due to the improper assembly of the tubing hanger assembly, the energizing ring did not fully engage the lock ring. When the BOP was removed, the single barrier held while the production tree was placed on the tubing head. But in the process of aligning and securing the production tree, the equipment made contact with the energizing ring, which then unseated the tubing hanger and allowed the pressure in the well to release and throw the production wellhead out of place, thus starting the blowout.
The wellhead came down, struck the individual working on it, breaking his leg.
Chair Robbins: Maybe just a quick question. There’s a lot of science, a lot of technology involved on this slide that I don’t quite get just because there’s a lot there. But you and your team, so this is Chevron’s analysis of what happened. You and your experts have reviewed it. Are you comfortable that this adequately describes what happened, what should have happened, and prevention techniques in the future just from kind of a big picture perspective?
Deputy Director: Yes sir. We have reviewed it. Our teams of both field compliance inspectors who are very familiar with wellhead work and wellhead operations, and our engineering unit have sat down studying this root cause analysis and studying what we know about wellhead operations. As I said, we do not dispute that this is the technical nuts and bolts that caused this incident to occur and how it occurred.
We had an opportunity to view the equipment after it was removed from the site and look at the damage to the various components of this equipment. We’ve been on site, we’ve been engaged with OSHA as they’ve conducted their investigation. Chevron has shared with us some detailed information that’s helped us to understand that this is what happened at the well site.
Chair Robbins: Thank you very much. We certainly rely on the expertise of all of our engineers and others that are reviewing this. Appreciate that. You can keep moving forward if you’d like unless other commissioners have questions.
Notice of Alleged Violation
Again, we don’t dispute Chevron’s findings. We do believe that there remain important next steps to further our overall understanding of the situation to ensure that other operators who have different wellhead assemblies make sure that their operations are also not at risk. As I noted before, it’s also important to note that the entity ultimately responsible for all actions on their oil and gas location is the operator. So now we will shift to presenting the enforcement side of our work.
I’ve already discussed the term Notice of Alleged Violation or NOAV. But to describe what it is exactly: per Rule 523, when the director has reasonable cause to believe that a violation of the act or of any commission rule, order, or permit has occurred, the director will require the operator to remedy the violation and may commence an enforcement action seeking penalties by issuing a Notice of Alleged Violation.
A Notice of Alleged Violation is the first formal step in an enforcement process and it is an allegation by staff. Ultimately, you, the commission, decide and adjudicate whether the violations we staff allege actually occurred.
ECMC staff are experts at interpreting our rules and are the ones to determine when we believe operations violate our rule. But our enforcement process is carefully guided by the administrative processes to ensure that fairness and consistency are maintained as we negotiate enforcement.
NOAVs also include specific corrective actions which are intended to abate the violation or prevent recurrence.
As I mentioned, this NOAV was issued to Noble Energy Inc. So why Noble and not Chevron? Noble is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron and is the operator of record of the Bishop well and location. As I said earlier, we hold the operator of record accountable for the work that goes on on their site.
ECMC used the root cause analysis as well as many other factors to investigate the incident. Based on that investigation, ECMC determined that enforcement action is warranted in this case. ECMC determined that the incident violated six rules. Those rules are shown here on the slide. As you can see, they are both in our general safety requirements as well as in the impact sort of arena in our 900 series. So both operational and impact rules were violated.
The NOAV document was just issued this morning. It is available on COGIS. It will be available on ECMC’s Bishop incident web page. The document number is 404256913.
The NOAV also included corrective actions established by staff, and as I said, the issuance of the NOAV is just the beginning of the enforcement process. It’s a formal legal process that plays out through the administrative procedures for our agency.
Next Steps in Enforcement Process
The next steps in this process: following the issuance of the NOAV, the operator must file an answer to the allegations made against them. Once the answer is received, ECMC will file an application to adjudicate the matter in front of the commission.
During that process, penalties are calculated and may be negotiated to achieve an appropriate outcome. The operator may contest one or more of the allegations.
The process to get to hearing and resolution takes time, but achieving successful resolution of this matter is a priority for our team. I should also note that ECMC’s enforcement action is one piece of the financial impacts this incident may have on Chevron. There may be civil settlements for damage. There’s a possibility for other agencies to enforce their regulations. And of course, there’s the cost of the response and cleanup.
To be clear, however, none of those other cost burdens factor into ECMC’s penalty calculations. For that, we rely on our rules and standard enforcement processes.
Lastly, because this matter will likely come before you for adjudication, no further information will be shared outside the publicly visible process of formal filings and commission hearings to achieve the resolution of this matter.
Chair Robbins: Just to put a fine point on that, the staff puts the NOAV out there, it adjudicates it, and it comes to commission for final decision. So the appropriate place for commission now is to let that play out and wait for it to come to us. That’s just kind of for everybody that’s listening in. There’s 175 people listening in, so they can understand that process.
Deputy Director: Thanks for clarifying that, Chair Robbins. I appreciate that.
Closing Remarks
That concludes our prepared remarks. I would like to end with a final acknowledgement again of the folks in the Galeton community who have experienced these hardships as a result of this incident. I’d also again like to thank our regulatory partners, the first responders, and truly the biggest expression of gratitude for our team at ECMC for the hard work that they’ve done and continue to do, including our contractor.
I would note that the contract support that Kyle mentioned is a contractor that is working directly for ECMC. Obviously Chevron has numerous contractors out there, but we employed contract support to help our team be able to provide better coverage out there as well.
With that, commissioners, I’ll stop sharing my screen and we would be happy to take questions.
Additional Commissioner Questions
Chair Robbins: Thank you very much. Really appreciate the significant amount of attention and expert work that you and the team have devoted to this incident. Just as one commissioner and one employee of ECMC for the last six and a half years, I can say with certainty that this is significant and unprecedented during my tenure, not just in terms of volumes released which I know we still don’t quite know, but in terms of complexity, in terms of scale of impact to environmental services as well as residents, and scale of response.
Just the general comment: I am extremely confident in our team’s expertise to oversee Chevron’s remediation efforts. I really appreciated Mr. Waggoner your comments relative to the remediation to date and the work ahead.
Just a couple of broad questions without getting into tons of detail, but I think probably a burning question on folks that are listening in is, and you talked about this, but maybe you could reemphasize: how likely is it this could happen again and what is being done to minimize that risk?
Deputy Director: Thanks for that question. That’s a big question. First and foremost, well site safety is paramount to our operations and to the industry operating in the state. It is critical.
In my time, 15 years at the commission, I can recall one other incident of a well blowout. It didn’t have the same effects as this one for a number of reasons. The reasons that it happened were different. There have been 10,000 wells completed, hydraulically fractured, since that last well. So extremely rare.
What to do to prevent it from happening again: as I mentioned, with this very specific root cause and the very specific details of what happened at this wellhead, the measures put in place will ensure that that particular issue doesn’t happen again.
I think another important consideration is the consideration of adequate barriers between the pressurized formation and the surface, making sure barriers are installed properly, tested properly, and functioning before we remove one to replace it.
These are going to be ongoing discussions between ECMC and industry. That’s why the notice to operators was really important to start that conversation with industry and for them, the operators that we directly regulate, to talk to their contractors, their subcontractors, everyone who’s on site to just double down on the procedures that they’re following, the safety that they’re ensuring on site, and making sure that everyone is aware when they’re entering into a situation where, in this case, they’re removing the BOP stack, the blowout prevention stack. You have to make sure then that the well is fully secure before that work takes place, and everybody on site needs to understand the importance of that moment in time.
Chair Robbins: Thank you very much. One other thing that was curious to me: Mr. Waggoner, you went through five or so acronyms of SAPs. I don’t recall in my tenure that being done or it’s never come to the attention of the commission. Is this new, unique? Is this something special to this issue to determine what happened and other things? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Mr. Waggoner: Yes sir. You’re right. First of all, these are only created for very, very complex remediation projects. The one thing I want to point out that is new and novel to this project is that by my knowledge, the CWSAP, which is a confirmation wipe, has not ever been done and required by the ECMC.
That process is simply designed to ensure that no E&P waste is present on structures that have been cleaned. So we’re talking about fences, houses, and in this case a school, an elementary school, after they had been decontaminated.
In addition, what was very impressive, again as I mentioned before, was all of our sister agencies and the level of collaboration. I know Greg mentioned the Department of Agriculture, CDPHE, water quality that occurred during the development of these SAPs. It was a very arduous task that we were able to achieve.
Chair Robbins: Great. No, I really appreciate that additional understanding of the significance here. I guess kind of last question, and you guys may not be able to speak to this, but it’s clear that folks in Galeton have been directly impacted. Do you have any sense of what’s being done for them or what our role is versus where Chevron is?
Deputy Director: Thanks, Chair Robbins. I’ll take that question and attempt to answer it as best I can. Obviously, this has been really hard for a lot of community members, families, to deal with both the trauma, if you will, of being evacuated during the incident and the aftermath of having their properties cleaned up, not having a depth of knowledge necessarily of what’s going on there.
As you mentioned, I certainly can’t speak for the efforts that Chevron has made, though I know they have personnel directly charged with engaging with those residents and dealing with claims. They did set up a claims line for folks to call in and report anything from the most minor to the most significant.
One of the things that we’ve tried to do throughout this whole thing is be an information resource. As I mentioned earlier, Kristen Kemp has been just a fantastic resource to the community, putting herself out there for folks to reach out to. We’ve also engaged our technical folks to help them understand on a one-on-one basis what the process might look like for them.
It’s hard to certainly put ourselves in their shoes. So we’re trying to be as responsive as we can to their needs. But that road goes on into the future, right? It doesn’t stop.
I know there’s a ton of people listening today. I’m grateful for that because it has been a good opportunity for us to put a very comprehensive, I believe, presentation out there for folks to get a good understanding. I think information and knowledge is really a powerful thing. In this case, we’ve received a lot of media attention and frankly, that’s been very helpful to help really get good information out there. What I’ve seen put out in the media has been great. Again, I know Kristen is with the media all the time and is making sure that they’re getting it right.
I hope that answers your question. We are meeting with community members in their community tonight, and so we’re excited again to have one-on-one conversations with them about where we are now and where things are going.
Chair Robbins: That’s great. Thanks for answering those sort of high-level questions. Again, the report you put together that’s going to be on the website is really well done and I think helps folks understand all of the various components of the issue. I’m looking around. Other commissioners, do you have questions as well?
Commissioner Mesner’s Comments
Commissioner Mesner: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Not a question because you asked a number of the questions that I was interested in hearing, but I do want to express my appreciation to the ECMC team and the response team in this particular incident and the transparency and forthright information that you’re providing here to both the commissioners and the public on this topic.
I think that as you’ve indicated is an essential piece to this response: making sure that that information is out there and provided. I think you’ve done an excellent job of that and so look forward to continuing that work as we continue down this path. So thanks for sharing the information with us today.
Deputy Director: Thanks, and if I may just comment on that. I recognize it’s been a while since we’ve been before you and there certainly has been a lot of action and activity going on out there. We really felt like it was important, after receiving the root cause analysis and being in the position to issue a Notice of Alleged Violation, that it was really time for us to come before you again. Recognizing that there was a pretty long gap since our last update, hopefully this was helpful.
Chair Robbins: No, I think this was tremendously helpful and I think it really provides a lot of information for a lot of folks that are interested in this. I note there’s 167 participants at this point. I also note that there was a number of folks from the press that are listening in, and Kristen, I really appreciate your availability and I know you’ll be available if folks have additional questions, but I think a lot of the questions were answered through the presentation this morning. So once again, well done.
Any other final questions, comments from commissioners? Very good. Keep up the good work.
Deputy Director: Thank you very much, commissioners. Appreciate the time today.