- At least 5.8 million gallons of oil, gas and byproducts were spilled in the three largest producing states in the Intermountain West.
- The 2,400 separate incidents were reported to state regulators in Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
- The report also found more than 6,000 missed spills at decommissioned wells in Colorado.
Across more than 2,400 incidents last year, 5.8 million gallons of oil, gas and related byproducts were spilled as part of natural resource extraction in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico.
In the three largest oil and gas producing states in the Intermountain West, that averages out to about 6.5 spills every day.
Those numbers are according to an analysis by the Center for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation advocacy organization, that reviewed public records kept by the three states’ respective regulatory agencies. The center has done a version of the review since 2017.
“Across all three states, a pattern is consistent: spill counts can rise or fall year to year, but the volume of oil, produced water and methane released into the region’s air, soil and waterways remains substantial,” Kate Groetzinger, the communications director for the Center for Western Priorities, said in a statement.
“While increased regulations seem to have had some effect in curbing methane waste in New Mexico, oil and gas production still generates significant air pollution that Westerners shouldn’t be forced to live with.”
Among this year’s findings, there was another telling statistic that came out of Colorado. After reviewing decommissioned wells over the past 10 years, the state found that there were almost double as many previously unreported spills as there were reported incidents.
“This implies the actual scale of spills and leaks is much bigger than this report captures,” according to the analysis. “Not just for Colorado, but in all three states.”
How much was spilled in each state?
Companies that extract natural resources like oil and gas are legally required to report their spills, leaks and releases to various governmental authorities.
The regulations and laws are all rather complicated, and vary depending on several factors, which often hinge on where something spilled — on water, land or shoreline, for example — and what the product itself is. Individual states have different reporting laws as well.
While most of the incidents are not close in scale to the Deepwater Horizon or the Exxon/Valdez spill, the totals do represent a large volume of byproduct spilling into the surrounding ecosystems.
Still, some were quite large.
There was a spill in Colorado where QB Energy Operating released approximately 352,800 gallons of produced water in Garfield County. But the single largest event last year was in New Mexico, where an OXY USA produced-water storage tank failure spilled 1.66 million gallons of contaminated water into the ground.
Across New Mexico, oil and gas companies reported 1,277 liquid spills — a 13% increase from the previous year — releasing 3.56 million gallons, which was 75% more than 2024. Those companies also reported more than 37,000 separate gas releases, which wasted enough energy to heat 127,000 American homes.
In Wyoming, oil and gas companies reported 786 spills, releasing 1.43 million gallons. It was the only one of the three states that had both fewer reported incidents and less total volume spilled than last year.
Colorado oil and gas companies also reported fewer incidents than the year before, but nearly doubled their total volume with 794,000 gallons spilled. Year after year, the Center for Western Priorities found that the majority of incidents occur in Weld County.
Reporting blind spots
According to the center, its report is likely far from a full accounting of the amount of natural resources and related pollutants that are released into the environment.
In particular, the spills that came from decommissioned wells in Colorado highlight blind spots in the reporting. The state labeled those previously unreported events as “legacy spills” and uncovered 6,084 incidents since 2016. During that same time period, 3,642 other spills were actually reported.
But even outside the new data that came to light in Colorado, the center is skeptical about reported totals due to how the data is collected.
“Spills, methane releases, and leaks are self-reported by operators to the state, and many reports list unknown volumes,” reads the report. Because of that, the Center for Western Priorities contends “the actual toll of oil and gas pollution is likely much higher than this dataset captures.”