This morning at the Oil Conservation Commission the PFAS prohibition hearing began, and the public showed up en masse to ask the Commissioners to protect our water from PFAS contamination at the hands of the oil and gas industry and to close the loopholes that allow the oil and gas industry to claim proprietary trade secrets by requiring verification from operators that all chemicals have been disclosed. For more than three hours young people, indigenous advocates, farmers, residents of La Cieneguilla, teachers and victims of environmental harms implored the Commissioners to put people before profit and ensure that we have the information necessary to protect our health, land and water.
In its opening statements NMOGA continues to argue for an extremely limited definition of PFAS in the rulemaking, an attempt to exclude thousands of toxic compounds in this class of chemicals from the rule, and claims that the Commissioners do not have authority to require that oil and gas operators verify that they have disclosed all chemicals used in downhole operations. The evidence continues to show that the oil and gas industry hides fracking fluid components from regulators and that the flowback fluids and produced water contaminated with those hidden components continues to spill across New Mexico. According to OCD’s Incident and Spill databases, between January 1, and October 15, 2024 oil and gas companies have reported:
16,618 oil and gas fluid-related spill incidents (Incident Database)
10,657 oil and gas produced water spill incidents
19,812 spills of separate oil and gas fluids (Spill Database)
4,789,952 barrels (Bbls) of spilled fluids, losing (not recovering) 1,768,867 Bbls
187 spills that reached a watercourse
99 spills that affected groundwater
WildEarth Guardians shared this response to NMOGA's duplicitous op-ed published last week, reminding us that "while PFAS is already a huge problem, only oil and gas injects materials that contain PFAS underground under high pressure into wells that deteriorate over time, putting groundwater at risk."Â
The precautionary principle must apply. Commissioners must prevent oil and gas operations from further contaminating our land and water with unknown chemical cocktails.
Last week the Hearing Examiner rejected NMOGA's attempts to dismiss all of the experts and testimony from both New Energy Economy and WildEarth Guardians. Today the people spoke with eloquence and clarity to reinforce OCC's responsibility to protect the people from PFAS. The hearing has started out strong, but we need to keep up the pressure. Public comment will continue for the rest of the week from 8:30-9:00AM and 4:30 to 5:00PM each day. Please raise your voice!