By ADAM FEDERMAN

Nearly four weeks into a gas leak on Alaska’s North Slope, state agencies involved in the response have yet to provide any details on what caused the event or an estimate of how much methane has been released into the environment.

Even as the CD 1 well pad at ConocoPhillips’s Alpine field remains shut in while the company seeks to plug the leak, remarkably little information has been made public. Most of what we know has come from Conoco’s Alpine response website, established one week after the leak was first reported on March 4.

This week, in response to public records released from the Department of Environmental Conservation, Conoco said it is not required to submit a report to that agency’s spill response division because the release of natural gas does not meet the DEC’s criteria for a reportable event.

But DEC has disputed that idea.

In an emailed statement, Tiffany Larson, director of the DEC’s Division of Spill Prevention & Response, said the agency does consider the release of natural gas at Alpine a reportable event that falls under the Department’s authority. According to DEC regulations, an operator must submit a written report to the agency within 15 days of a discharge or release of a hazardous substance other than oil. This report must include detailed information about the type and amount of the substance released, the factors that caused or contributed to the event, and a description of any environmental effects.

DEC says it has not yet received a written report from ConocoPhillips and it is unclear at this point if the company will provide one. The leak is now in its 27th day. Larson also added that, when requested, ConocoPhillips has provided the department with documentation regarding the ongoing leak.

“ConocoPhillips made a timely initial notification to the Department of the release when it was discovered,” she wrote. “ConocoPhillips is working responsively with the Department on the release, while AOGCC handles the matters under their authority.”

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is overseeing the investigation into the leak and has its own set of regulations governing the reporting of an uncontrolled release of oil or gas. Under AOGCC regulations, Conoco must submit a final written report to the commission within 30 days.

In an interview, AOGCC special assistant Grace Salazar said that the commission could not comment on DEC’s authority in this matter. “AOGCC also has robust regulations pertaining to drilling activities of oil and gas operators,” she said.

ConocoPhillips maintains that there has been “no impact to the tundra or wildlife” and that only low levels of natural gas have been detected at the surface of the well pad.

Former AOGCC commissioner Hollis French said that the commission should have had someone on site immediately after the release, “using the marshal like powers that they have,” to document what was happening.

“It illustrates in my view the continued weakness of the state—the DEC and AOGCC—with respect to methane leaks,” French said.

The question of DEC’s jurisdiction over the event first came up in emails to ConocoPhillips from the agency during the first week of the leak, before the state had released any details to the public. The gas leak, primarily methane according to ConocoPhillips, was first reported early in the morning on March 4. ConocoPhillips evacuated 300 employees from the CD-1 well site on March 7, “out of an abundance of caution,” and has brought in well relief experts from Texas to help address the problem.

Emails obtained through a public records request show DEC struggling to get information from ConocoPhillips during the early days of the leak.

On March 7, according to the emails, Kimberley Maher, Northern Alaska Manager with the Division of Spill Prevention and Response, asked ConocoPhillips for more information about the situation and notified the company that, since the leak was a “long-term uncontrolled release of a hazardous substance,” DEC was now considering it a reportable event.

ConocoPhillips said it disagreed with this reading of the agency’s regulations. “As we interpret the governing ADEC regulations, this is not a reportable event,” ConocoPhillips’s Field Environmental Coordinator wrote on March 8.

In a written response, Maher confirmed that while AOGCC is the lead agency in this case, the release of natural gas or other hazardous substances would also come under DEC’s jurisdiction. “DEC determines what is considered reportable if there is disagreement between DEC and a potentially responsible party,” she wrote.

ConocoPhillips did not respond directly to questions about DEC’s jurisdiction but did post new information on its Alpine response website. The company said it takes the issue of incident reporting seriously and provides “information as required by state and federal agencies.” The company filed a report with DEC after the release of approximately 600 gallons of saline water on March 9, but continues to assert that it is not required to submit a separate, written report to the agency.

“We determined a report to the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) and other agencies was not required because the event was a natural gas release that did not meet ADEC criteria for a reportable event,” the company wrote on its response website.

Throughout the first week of the release, according to the public records, Maher continued to express frustration with ConocoPhillips’s response. On March 9, she informed an AOGCC petroleum engineer that it had been difficult to get information and updates from ConocoPhillips and requested that spill response and prevention be included in any briefings. Maher also alluded to having received incorrect information and to the circulation of misinformation in the early days of the response.

On March 10, Maher emailed ConocoPhillips and said the company should “understand that it’s in its best interest to be proactively communicating with PPR, especially now that natural gas and saline water is surfacing at CD 1.”

A couple of days later ConocoPhillips launched its Alpine response website through which it fields questions and posts periodic updates. The deadline for the company’s written report to AOGCC is April 4.

Adam Federman is a reporting fellow with Type Investigations and the author of Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray.