Updated - 7.16.20

The State of Colorado is a national leader in its commitment to fostering safe and responsible development of Colorado’s oil and gas resources. Over the past nine years Colorado has implemented precedent-setting regulations from baseline groundwater testing and monitoring to air regulations targeting methane leak detection and repair. 

​Safety is the top priority for Colorado’s oil and natural gas industry. We want nothing more than to ensure our community is a safe place to live, which is why companies often go above and beyond regulatory requirements to operate safely and responsibly. 

​Protection of Colorado’s groundwater is one of our highest priorities. The oil and natural gas industry coordinates with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission (COGCC) regarding all water related regulatory oversight. 

Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is a process to extract oil and natural gas deposits from tight rock formations. A mixture of pressurized water, sand, and chemicals is pumped into the formation creating tiny fissures in targeted areas of the source rock. These tiny fissures allow oil and natural gas to escape and flow through piping up to the surface. First tried 70 years ago, hydraulic fracturing became widely used in the last two decades after horizontal drilling began to replace vertical drilling. The combination of horizontal drilling and fracturing allows more efficient recovery of resources with a much smaller environmental footprint than drilling multiple vertical wells. Over 95 percent of the wells in the U.S. are hydraulically fractured at some point during their lifetime.