JULY 2025
There was no question who July’s polluter of the month would be. Chevron, the world’s second largest polluter, blew the competition out of the water…rather, Chevron literally blew fracking waste water (potentially radioactive), crude oil and gas into the air, erupting like a geyser for nearly 5 days in Galeton, Colorado from April 6 – 11, 2025. The damage was unprecedented.
Chevron has identified improper assembly of well site equipment as a primary root cause of the blowout that filled the small town of Galeton’s air with dangerous levels of benzene, a cancer-causing pollutant. Already, even without knowing the full harm, Chevron’s ‘Bishop Well’ blowout is sure to crown itself as the largest spill in Colorado history.
Chevron has done a lot of talking about “ever-cleaner energy”, but visits to several of the company’s Colorado facilities reveal a dirtier business-as-usual. Even before the Galeton blowout, Earthworks has captured footage of five other pollution events spewing from Chevron wells just since February.
Stats
- A well blowout lasting almost 5 days, spewing 1,008,000 gallons of water
- Chevron had moved 7000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and 89,000 barrels of fracking liquids by the end of April.
- An estimated 252,000 gallons of “liquid hydrocarbons” were released.
- 5 pollution events identified and 4 complaints filed since February 2025