Environmental Justice
ECMC is devoted to making our work as accessible as possible for community members. We welcome and need your feedback. Our Environmental Justice Liaisons are here to help you engage with our work as easily as possible. We are required by law to proactively provide additional opportunities for communities to engage in energy regulations and permitting processes. More so, we want to because environmental justice matters to us.
What is Environmental Justice?
From the US Environmental Protection Agency: "Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. This goal will be achieved when everyone enjoys:
- The same degree of protection from environmental health hazards, and
- Equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work."
Cumulative Impacts
Cumulative impacts refer to the combined effects on public health and the environment from the incremental impacts of a proposed oil and gas operation, alongside those from past, present, and foreseeable future developments. Addressing long-standing environmental and health impacts, particularly in Disproportionately Impacted (DI) communities, requires an accurate and realistic understanding of the effects from combined exposures to chemical and other stressors such as noise, odor, and socioeconomic disadvantages. It also requires stakeholders, particularly in DI communities, to have access to information and decision-making opportunities.
Colorado’s statutory definition of Disproportionately Impacted (DI) communities includes low income communities, communities of color, housing cost-burdened communities, linguistically isolated communities, communities with environmental and socioeconomic impacts, Tribal lands, mobile home communities, and historically marginalized communities. The state identifies DI communities at the census block group scale, which is the smallest geographic scale of data available from the US Census Block Bureau and typically contains 600 to 3,000 individuals.
The cumulative impacts rules also require the integration of new data cross-checks in the permitting process regarding NOx and Greenhouse Gases (GHG). Furthermore, the rules include new, more protective practices when applying for oil and gas permits. The rules ensure that operators are compliant with air pollution rules as adopted by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC). The full rulemaking is published online.
The rules reflect a paradigm shift in energy regulation. In 2019, Senate Bill 19-181 put in place a new mission for ECMC to regulate energy development in a manner that protects public health, safety, welfare, the environment and wildlife resources, whereas the prior mission fostered energy development. In the past five years, ECMC has implemented new rules that reflect the new mission. Notably, SB23-285 authorized ECMC to be the regulatory authority over geothermal and underground gas storage in Colorado; SB23-016 authorized ECMC to seek Class VI primacy for carbon storage injection wells; SB24-229 mandated more stringent regulations regarding operator’s uses of electric submersible pump and the reduction of NOx emissions; and HB24-1346 and Senate Bill 24-229 authorized ECMC to adopt cumulative impacts rules.
ECMC Complaints
Email ECMC
Meet our team!
Megan Adamczyk, Community Liaison
Steven Arauza, Environmental Justice Community Liaison - West Slope
Yesica Chavez, Environmental Justice Community Liaison - Front Range
Kristin Kemp, Press Officer & Community Relations Manager
Contact us directly! Our Community Liaisons are here to help you engage with our work as easily as possible. In fact, we are required by law to proactively provide additional opportunities for communities to engage in energy regulations and permitting processes, particularly Disproportionately Impacted communities. Our team helps engage members of the community with ECMC's work and helps amplify the voices of community members, but as state employees we cannot engage in political matters (per State Personnel Rule 1-17).
