Tag Archives: Water quality

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil spill, Rivers, Water quality

West Virginia derailment: eyewitness account, pictures

Repost from Metro News, the Voice of West Virginia
[Editor: Go to the website for audio eyewitness account and additional pictures.  Check out this amazing photo on the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.  Also see the massive explosion on this 1-minute video on Facebook.  Later details in this live WOWK TV Charleston report. – RS]

Train derailment sends crude oil cars into Kanawha River; explosions erupt

By Jeff Jenkins in News | February 16, 2015

Boomer_WV_CSX_derailmentMOUNT CARBON, W.Va. — Multiple tanker rail cars carrying crude oil derailed Monday afternoon in Fayette County, triggering explosions and a 100-yard-high flames as several cars rolled through a residential subdivision and into the Kanawha River.  CSX officials say “at least one rail car appears to have ruptured and caught fire.”

At least one house was destroyed, but police have found no evidence of fatalities.  CSX says one person was treated for potential inhalation (of fumes).

CSX says its teams “are working with first responders to address the fire, to determine how many rail cars derailed and to deploy environmental protective and monitoring measures on land, air and in the nearby Kanawha River.

The an undetermined number of cars of the CSX train jumped the tracks at about 1:20 p.m. Eyewitness Randy Fitzwater of Boomer said he thought a plane had crashed.

“I heard this loud noise. It sounded like a jet airplane flew over my house and then I heard an explosion,” Fitzwater told Metronews.  “I looked across the river and I could see this big ball of flame.”  (Listen to Fitzwater’s full interview above.)

Another eyewitness, who declined to give her name, told Metronews “the flames were going at least 300 feet in the air … black smoke everywhere.” She reported hearing several explosions “that shook my whole house. I could feel the heat through my door.”

Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s office said the tanker cars were carrying highly flammable Bakken crude from North Dakota to Yorktown, Va. Governor’s spokesman Chris Stadleman said it was unclear what caused the derailment or how many cars tumbled into the river.

State Public Safety spokesman Larry Messina said first responders had trouble reaching the scene because of road conditions from the snowstorm and the derailment itself.

Mount Carbon residents in the Adena Village area, which is just a few miles from Montgomery on state Route 61, were being evacuated. Residents across the river in Boomer also were told to leave their homes.

An evacuation shelter was set up at Valley Elementary School in Smithers, W.Va.  CSX said it is working with the Red Cross and other relief organizations to address residents’ needs, taking into account winter storm conditions.

With water intakes at Montgomery and Cedar Grove closed, residents were asked to conserve water.

West Virginia American Water reported the intake for the Montgomery water treatment plant, which draws water from the Kanawha River a few miles downstream from the derailment, was shut down by 2:30 p.m. Spokeswoman Laura Jordan said the Montgomery treatment plant “was shut down before anything could reach the intake.”

CSX says “The train consisted of two locomotives and 109 rail cars and was traveling from North Dakota to Yorktown, Va.”  Governor Tomblin’s office said the train was hauling Bakken crude.

Bakken crude produced in the booming regions of Montana and North Dakota could be more flammable and more dangerous to ship by train than crude from other areas, U.S. regulators announced in January. A four-month study by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration could force more rigid labeling of contents and require petroleum to be shipped in stronger rail cars.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Fire, Oil spill, Rivers, Water quality

LATEST DERAILMENT: WV train derailment causes massive fire, evacuations (raw video)

Repost from The Los Angeles Times

West Virginia train derailment causes massive fire, evacuations

By Ryan Parker, Feb 16, 2015, 1:31pm

A train derailment Monday afternoon in West Virginia caused multiple explosions and a massive fire, officials said.

At least one home near the derailment in Fayette County caught fire and has been destroyed, according to Lawrence Messina, the state’s public safety spokesman.

The derailment happened about 1:20 p.m. Eastern time, Messina said. Three hours later, the fire was still burning, he said.

The CSX train was hauling crude oil, which is leaking from at least one of the cars, Messina said. There are no reported injuries, he said.

“Our concern is oil is leaking into the Kanawha River,” he said. Two water intakes downstream from the treatment plant have been shut down, he said.

CSX acknowledged that the company was aware of the situation. “We are working with first responders on the scene to ensure the safety of the community,” it said on Twitter.

Some of the tanker cars exploded, and oil on a portion of the river is on fire, according to the office of Kanawha County Emergency Management & Floodplain Management, which was assisting in the response.

Kanawha County is downriver from Fayette County.

Adena Village, near the derailment, has been evacuated, and authorities were beginning to evacuate homes across the river from the fire about 4:30 p.m., Messina said. At least 100 people have been evacuated, he said.

Fayette County is about 60 miles southeast of Charleston.

Pictures on social media, which a spokesman for the Montgomery Fire Department confirmed were of the scene, showed fire engulfing the train.

Heavy snow is falling in the area, but Messina said it is unclear if that will help extinguish the fire.

California Regulation, Fracking, Water quality

California: Aquifer oil waste dumping to cease

Repost from The San Francisco Chronicle

Aquifer oil waste dumping to cease

State plan gives firms until Oct. 15 to stop injecting tainted water

By David R. Baker, Feb 10, 2015
Pumps operate at the Kern River Oil Field in Bakersfield in January. Jae C. Hong / Associated Press

Oil companies in California must stop injecting wastewater from their operations into potentially drinkable aquifers by Oct. 15, according to a plan by state regulators who allowed it to happen for years.

In a proposal submitted to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, regulators promised to painstakingly review wells at risk of contamination, ensuring the injections did not taint aquifers already used for drinking water or irrigation in the drought-plagued Central Valley.

The plan — from California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources — comes in response to revelations that, for decades, the division granted oil companies permits to inject leftover water from their operations into aquifers that the federal government wanted protected. Now, with California heading into a fourth year of drought, that water may be difficult for humans to use.

A Chronicle analysis found that the state allowed oil companies to drill 171 wastewater injection wells into aquifers that could have been tapped for crops or people. Of those wells, 140 are still in use, according to the division. Injection into those wells must stop by mid-October unless specifically approved by the EPA, according to the plan.

A shuttered injection well next to a Palla Farms almond orchard sits empty in January. Palla Farms filed a suit blaming several oil companies for contaminating the local groundwater and killing trees. Jae C. Hong / Associated Press

February deadline  

An additional 253 wells breached lower-quality aquifers still considered off-limits by the EPA, from which water could have been used with more extensive treatment. Oil companies must cease using   these wells by Feb. 15, 2017, barring an exemption from the EPA.

The EPA, which helped uncover the practice in 2011, had given the division until Feb. 6 to submit plans for fixing the problem. The EPA has threatened to seize control of regulating the oil industry’s underground injection wells in California if the state doesn’t do a better job protecting groundwater supplies from contamination. (Although the division’s plan is dated Feb. 6, it was released to the public on Monday.)

“Our goal is to make sure the state is up to the job,” said Jared Blumenfeld, regional administrator for the EPA, in an interview before the division submitted its plans. “Frankly, if it got to the level where we needed to take (control) back, we would. That’s never been off the table. But I think we’re fairly far from needing to do that.”

The time frame for reform has already drawn fire from environmentalists. But both state and federal regulators say the oil industry will need time   to comply. If the division is forced to shut down some wells to protect drinking water supplies, the oil companies will have time to find other ways to deal with the waste.

“This is a problem that we worked ourselves into over 30 years, and it’s not a problem that can be solved in a year,” said the division’s new supervisor, Steven Bohlen, appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year.

Problem’s roots  

The problem dates to 1983, when the EPA gave the division authority to enforce the federal Safe Drinking Water Act in California’s oil fields.

The state’s oil reservoirs typically contain large amounts of briny water mixed with the crude. Companies must separate the oil from the water and get rid of the water, which is usually too laden with minerals and hydrocarbons to be used for drinking and irrigation. In addition, oil-extraction techniques such as hydraulic fracturing use freshwater that becomes tainted in the process and needs disposal   .

Companies inject much of the leftover water back into oil reservoirs. But some of it is pumped into salty underground aquifers that have no oil.

The 1983 agreement listed by name aquifers that the oil industry would be able to use with a simple permit from the division. But in a bizarre snafu, there were two signed versions of the agreement, one of which listed 11 aquifers not found on the other.

The division started issuing permits for injection wells drilled into those aquifers, even though they didn’t previously contain oil and weren’t viewed by the EPA as suitable for wastewater disposal. Under the agreement, the EPA has final say on which aquifers the oil industry can and can’t use.

The state even authorized oil companies to inject into a handful of aquifers already in use for drinking and irrigation, leading to the emergency closure of eight injection wells last year. Officials have now tested nine nearby drinking wells for contamination and   found none. But aquifers tainted with chemicals are difficult and expensive to clean, and state water regulators say they can’t be certain that contamination won’t eventually turn up in those drinking water supplies.

Onus on oil firms  

In the future, oil companies will need to build a case for why specific aquifers should be considered suitable for wastewater disposal, according to the division’s proposal. The companies will submit their data to the division and the State Water Resources Control Board for review. If those two state agencies agree, they will — together — ask the EPA to allow injections into those aquifers.

As for the 11 aquifers compromised by the 1983 bureaucratic mix-up, injections there will be phased out by mid-February 2017, unless the EPA decides to let them continue.

California oil industry, California Regulation, Fracking, Natural gas, Water quality

California Pledges Changes in Protecting Underground Water

Repost from ABC News (AP)

California Pledges Changes in Protecting Underground Water

By Ellen Knickmeyer, AP, Feb 9, 2015

California has proposed closing by October up to 140 oilfield wells that state regulators had allowed to inject into federally protected drinking water aquifers, state officials said Monday.

The deadline is part of a broad plan the state sent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last week for bringing state regulation of oil and gas operations back into compliance with federal safe-drinking water requirements. State authorities made the plan public Monday.

An ongoing state review mandated by the EPA found more than 2,500 oil and gas injection wells that the state authorized into aquifers that were supposed to be protected as current or potential sources of water for drinking and watering crops.

An Associated Press analysis found hundreds of the now-challenged state permits for oilfield injection into protected aquifers have been granted since 2011, despite the state’s drought and growing warnings from the EPA about lax state protection of water aquifers in areas of oil and gas operations.

Steve Bohlen, head of the state Department of Conservation’s oil and gas division, told reporters Monday that the proposed regulatory changes were “long overdue.”

EPA spokeswoman Nahal Mogharabi said Monday that federal authorities would review the new state plan over coming weeks. “EPA will then work with the State to ensure that the plan contains actions that will bring their program into compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Mogharabi said. She referred to landmark 1974 legislation that sought to protect underground drinking-water sources from oil and gas operations.

Bohlen said 140 of those 2,500 injection wells were of primary concern to the state now because they were actively injecting oil-field fluids into aquifers with especially good water quality.

State water officials currently are reviewing those 140 oil-field wells to see which are near water wells and to assess any contamination of water aquifers from the oil and gas operations, Bohlen said.

Part of the state plan released Monday would set an Oct. 15 deadline to stop injection into those water aquifers deemed most vital to protect them from contamination. State officials also could shut down oil field wells sooner if they are deemed to jeopardize nearby water wells, authorities said. This summer, the state ordered oil companies to stop using at least nine oil field wells that altogether had more than 100 water wells nearby.

The U.S. EPA had given the state until Friday to detail how it would deal with current injection into protected water aquifers and stop future permitting of risky injection.

While some of the fluids and materials that oil companies inject underground as part of normal production is simply water, some can contain high levels of salt or other material that can render water unfit for drinking or irrigating crops.

California is the nation’s third-largest oil-producing state, and oil companies say the kind of injection wells under scrutiny are vital to the state’s oil production.

Tupper Hull, a spokesman for the Western State Petroleum Association, said the oil-industry group feared state regulators would not be able to meet all the deadlines they were setting for compliance with federal water standards.

If that happens, oil producers “would be put into the untenable position of having to shut in wells or reduce production,” Hull said.