When reporter Nick Bowlin tried using Oklahoma’s Open Records law two years ago at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, he was told it would cost $149,000 in search time and effort at the state agency. He sought oil and gas industry records at the commission as he launched an investigation into wastewater pollution across Oklahoma.
“I don’t know if I’ve come across a reporter who has had a records fee quite that large. It was a big request, but that [amount] is obviously ridiculous.”
It was a financial brick wall. He recalled how he spent the next several months narrowing his requests and regularly checking in with the agency — all to no avail. “I was banging my head against the wall, trying to get records out of the state,” he said. “They were just stonewalling me.”
Stymied by the prohibitive cost of the public records, Bowlin turned to legal help from a Tulsa attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
Leslie Briggs started sending letters to the Commission, making the case for the agency to turn over the requested records at little or no charge.
“Leslie got involved, and the records just started pouring in,” Bowlin said. “I was sort of struck by how swiftly things changed.”
The freelance journalist used those records to craft strong story pitches to ProPublica, which ultimately selected him to report them out while working for The Frontier, a nonprofit newsroom in Oklahoma.
The Reporters Committee reports that to date, Bowlin has used the records that Briggs helped him obtain to report two in-depth investigations about state regulators’ failure to stop toxic wastewater from leaking out of poorly plugged oil wells. The pollution, which is the result of oil and gas companies injecting wastewater underground at high pressure, has contaminated drinking water, damaged farmland, and killed cattle, according to Bowlin’s reporting.
This month, ProPublica and The Frontier turned Bowlin’s investigative reporting into a powerful new documentary. The film spotlights Oklahomans whose lives have been upended by the wastewater problem and documents their struggle to get oil and gas regulators to respond.
