A state com­mis­sion has approved a rule that will require com­pa­nies to mon­i­tor emis­sions from oil and gas sites ear­li­er and more fre­quent­ly than is cur­rent­ly done as Col­orado offi­cials imple­ment a law over­haul­ing how the indus­try is regulated.

The Col­orado Air Qual­i­ty Con­trol Com­mis­sion vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly Wednes­day night for a rule to track emis­sions  from the start of con­struc­tion of a well and over the first six months of pro­duc­tion. The mon­i­tor­ing of so-called pre­pro­duc­tion, a phase that can pro­duce high emis­sions of chem­i­cals and health com­plaints from the pub­lic, is a new requirement.

The pro­pos­al is part of the imple­men­ta­tion of Sen­ate Bill 181. The 2019 law changed the state’s mis­sion from fos­ter­ing oil and gas devel­op­ment to reg­u­lat­ing it in a way that pro­tects pub­lic health, safe­ty and the environment.

The mon­i­tor­ing rule, thought to be the first of its kind in the coun­try, builds on changes the Air Qual­i­ty Con­trol Com­mis­sion made in Decem­ber to require more fre­quent inspec­tions of oil and gas equip­ment statewide. Com­pa­nies will have to start mon­i­tor­ing pro­grams for new wells start­ing May 1.

Dur­ing pub­lic hear­ings last week, speak­ers acknowl­edged the efforts to mon­i­tor pol­lu­tants dur­ing phas­es of oil and gas pro­duc­tion cur­rent­ly not cov­ered, but said more spe­cif­ic objec­tives and cri­te­ria for tech­nolo­gies and prac­tices are need­ed to pro­duce use­ful data. Some speak­ers urged the AQCC to put the state or an inde­pen­dent third par­ty in charge of devis­ing the mon­i­tor­ing plans, not the oil and gas companies.

What the state air pol­lu­tion con­trol divi­sion calls “high-fre­quen­cy” mon­i­tor­ing will start with well con­struc­tion and  con­tin­ue through drilling, hydraulic frac­tur­ing and what’s called flow­back, which is when ground­wa­ter and flu­ids used in frack­ing are brought to the sur­face and dis­posed of. Com­pa­nies will have to get their mon­i­tor­ing plans approved by the state division.

Pol­lu­tants that will be mon­i­tored include methane, a potent green­house gas; ben­zene, known to cause can­cer; and oth­er chem­i­cals that form ground-lev­el ozone. The ozone pol­lu­tion lev­els in sev­er­al coun­ties along the Front Range exceed fed­er­al standards.

WildEarth Guardians pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cized the pro­pos­al as vague and unen­force­able. The rule requires no lev­el of “qual­i­ty, accu­ra­cy con­sis­ten­cy, adher­ence to method­ol­o­gy, or sub­stan­tive com­pli­ance” that would ensure that any use­ful data would be col­lect­ed, the envi­ron­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion said in writ­ten testimony.

The West­ern and Rur­al Local Gov­ern­ment Coali­tion, which often dif­fers from envi­ron­men­tal groups when it comes to stricter statewide oil and gas reg­u­la­tions, also found fault with the pro­pos­al on tech­ni­cal grounds. Kir­by Wynn, Garfield County’s oil and gas liai­son, said in an email the the pro­posed rule “lacks cru­cial design and data quality/consistency cri­te­ria need­ed if the data are to have val­ue to inform future emis­sion reduc­tion opportunities.”

The AQCC revised some of the rule’s pro­vi­sions. The changes include the require­ment to con­sult with local gov­ern­ments that want to give input and to noti­fy them when a company’s mon­i­tor­ing plan is approved.

Anoth­er change requires col­lect­ing emis­sions data for 10 days instead of the orig­i­nal three before the offi­cial mon­i­tor­ing begins so that ref­er­ence points can be estab­lished. The AQCC also revised pro­vi­sions to make the data more acces­si­ble to the public.

Jere­my Nichols, the cli­mate and ener­gy pro­gram direc­tor for WildEarth Guardians, said in an email that while he appre­ci­at­ed the commission’s efforts to refine the pro­pos­al, he remains con­cerned “that this is ulti­mate­ly too open-end­ed and not like­ly to pro­vide the robust data need­ed to ensure pro­tec­tion of clean air and pub­lic health.”

Mem­bers of Col­orado Com­mu­ni­ties for Cli­mate Action expressed sup­port for giv­ing local gov­ern­ments oppor­tu­ni­ties for input.

“Today’s deci­sion will mean that local com­mu­ni­ties across Colorado’s West Slope and Front Range will be bet­ter pro­tect­ed from dan­ger­ous air pol­lu­tion and from cli­mate change. We will all have bet­ter data on air pol­lu­tion and stronger pro­tec­tions against the dam­age caused by that pol­lu­tion,” George Mar­lin, Clear Creek Coun­ty com­mis­sion­er and vice pres­i­dent of the orga­ni­za­tion, said in a statement.

Lynn Granger,executive direc­tor of the Amer­i­can Petro­le­um Insti­tute-Col­orado, com­mend­ed the staff and com­mis­sion­ers for adopt­ing “large­ly fea­si­ble, prac­ti­cal improve­ments” to the state’s air-qual­i­ty regulations.

“Stake­hold­ers spent most of the past year in dili­gent pur­suit of an out­come that will ben­e­fit pub­lic health, safe­ty, wel­fare, the envi­ron­ment and wildlife, and we believe that this evening’s results will advance those foun­da­tion­al goals, which all Col­oradans share,” Granger said in a statement.

Address­ing the calls by some for a more struc­tured pro­gram, Gar­ry Kauf­man, direc­tor of the state air pol­lu­tion con­trol divi­sion, said the rule is groundbreaking.

“There isn’t a tem­plate for it and we’re deal­ing with tech­nolo­gies that are evolv­ing rapid­ly,” Kauf­man. “We want­ed to make sure that we draft­ed a rule that was suf­fi­cient­ly flex­i­ble to allow for dif­fer­ent technologies.”

As more is learned about the mon­i­tor­ing sys­tems, there might be oppor­tu­ni­ties in the future to tight­en up some of the require­ments, Kauf­man said.

“This is an ongo­ing process,” he added. “We nev­er expect­ed it to be a one-and-done rule making.”