Category Archives: Water contamination

Drilling boom means more harmful waste spills

Repost from the Associated Press

AP Exclusive: Drilling boom means more harmful waste spills

By John Flesher, Sep. 8, 2015 8:45 PM EDT

CROSSROADS, N.M. (AP) — Carl Johnson and son Justin are third- and fourth-generation ranchers who for decades have battled oilfield companies that left a patchwork of barren earth where the men graze cattle in the high plains of New Mexico. Blunt and profane, they stroll across a 1 1/2-acre patch of sandy soil — lifeless, save for a scattering of stunted weeds.

Five years ago, a broken pipe soaked the land with as much as 420,000 gallons of oilfield wastewater — a salty and potentially toxic drilling byproduct that can quickly turn fertile land into a dead zone. The leaked brine killed every sprig of grama and bluestem grasses and shinnery shrubs it touched.

For the Johnsons, the spill is among dozens that have taken a heavy toll: a landscape pockmarked with spots where livestock can no longer graze, legal fees running into the tens of thousands and worries about the safety of the area’s underground aquifer.

“If we lose our water, that ruins our ranch,” Justin Johnson said. “That’s the end of the story.”

Their plight illustrates a largely overlooked side effect of oil and gas production that has worsened with the past decade’s drilling boom: spills of wastewater that foul the land, kill wildlife and threaten freshwater supplies.

An Associated Press analysis of data from leading oil- and gas-producing states found more than 175 million gallons of wastewater spilled from 2009 to 2014 in incidents involving ruptured pipes, overflowing storage tanks and other mishaps or even deliberate dumping. There were some 21,651 individual spills. And these numbers are incomplete because many releases go unreported.

Though oil spills tend to get more attention, wastewater spills can be more damaging. And in seven of the 11 states the AP examined, the amount of wastewater released was at least twice that of oil discharged.

Spilled oil, however unsightly, over time is absorbed by minerals in the soil or degraded by microbes. Not so with the wastewater, also known as brine, produced water or saltwater. Unless thoroughly cleansed, a costly and time-consuming process, salt-saturated land dries up. Trees die. Crops cannot take root.

“Oil spills may look bad, but we know how to clean them up and … return the land to a productive state,” said Kerry Sublette, a University of Tulsa environmental engineer and specialist in treating the despoiled landscapes. “Brine spills are much more difficult.”

In addition to the extreme salinity, the fluids often contain heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, plus radioactivity. Even smaller discharges affecting an acre or two gradually add up for landowners — “death by a thousand bee stings,” said Don Shriber of Farmington, New Mexico, a cattleman who wrangled with an oil company over damage.

For animals, the results can be fatal. Ranchers, including Melvin Reed of Shidler, Oklahoma, said they have lost cattle that lapped up the liquids or ate tainted grass.

“They get real thin. It messes them up,” Reed said. “Sometimes you just have to shoot them.”

The AP obtained data from regulatory agencies in Texas, North Dakota, California, Alaska, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Kansas, Utah and Montana — states that account for more than 90 percent of the nation’s onshore oil production. Officials in ninth-ranking oil producer Louisiana and second-ranking gas producer Pennsylvania said they could not provide comprehensive spill data.

The spill total increased each year, along with oil and gas production. In 2009, there were 2,470 reported spills in the 11 states; by 2014, the total was 4,643. The amount of wastewater spilled doubled from 21.1 million gallons in 2009 to 43 million in 2013 before dipping to 33.5 million last year.

The extent of land or water contamination is unknown; state and federal regulators make no such assessments. Texas, the nation’s biggest oil and gas producer, had the most incidents, 4,783, and the highest volume spilled, 62 million gallons.

Industry groups and regulators said much of the waste is recovered during cleanup operations or contained by berms near wells. Still, they acknowledged a certain amount soaks into the ground and can flow into waterways.

“You’re going to have spills in an industrial society,” said Katie Brown, spokeswoman for Energy In Depth, a research and education arm of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “But there are programs in place to reduce them.”

Wastewater spills have dogged the oil industry from its earliest days more than a century ago, borne witness by barren sites from the Great Plains to the Pacific. A notorious symbol is the “Texon scar,” where brine from a well drilled in 1923 near that tiny West Texas town created a desolate 2,000-acre swath dotted with dead mesquite trees. Efforts to restore the land continue to this day, said range conservationist Joe Petersen.

Concentrated brine, much saltier than seawater, exists naturally in rock formations thousands of feet underground, a remnant of prehistoric oceans. When oil and gas are pumped to the surface, the water comes too, along with fluids and chemicals injected to crack open rock — the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Production of methane gas from coal deposits also generates wastewater, but it is less salty and harmful.

The spills usually occur as oil and gas are channeled to metal tanks for separation from the wastewater, and the water is delivered to a disposal site — usually an injection well that pumps it back underground. Pipelines, tank trucks and pits are potential weak points.

Accidents range from the mundane to the freakish; in 2010, a storage tank near Ardmore, Oklahoma, overflowed after a snake slithered into a panel box and blew a fuse. Most spills are caused by equipment malfunction or human error, according to state reports reviewed by the AP.

Though no full accounting of damage exists, the scope is sketched out in a sampling of incidents:

— In North Dakota, a spill of nearly 1 million gallons in 2006 caused a massive die-off of fish, turtles and plants in the Yellowstone River and a tributary. Cleanup costs approached $2 million. Two larger spills since then scoured vegetation along an almost 2-mile stretch and fouled a creek and a river.

— Wastewater from unlined pits seeped beneath a 6,000-acre cotton and nut farm near Bakersfield, California, and contaminated groundwater. Oil giant Aera Energy was ordered in 2009 to pay $9 million to grower Fred Starrh, who had to remove 2,000 acres from production.

— Brine leaks exceeding 40 million gallons over decades on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana polluted a river, private wells and the municipal water system in Poplar. “It was undrinkable,” said resident Donna Whitmer. “If you shook it up, it’d look all orange.” Under a 2012 settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, oil companies paid $320,000 for new water wells and other improvements. Drinking water tainted with oilfield brine can cause high blood pressure, dehydration and other health risks, EPA spokeswoman Sarah Teschner said.

— In Fort Stockton, Texas, officials in February accused oil company Bugington Energy of illegally dumping 3 million gallons of wastewater in pastures. Paul Weatherby, general manager of the Middle Pecos Groundwater Conservation District, said he fears contamination of the area’s groundwater table. The district levied a $130,000 fine but the company hasn’t paid, contending the district overstepped its authority.

— A pipeline joint failure caused flooding on Don Stoker’s ranch near Snyder, Texas, in November 2012 and turned his hackberry shade trees into skeletons. Vacuum trucks sucked up some saltwater and the oil company paid damages, but Stoker said his operation was in turmoil. “I had to stay out there three days and watch them while they were getting the saltwater out, to make sure they didn’t totally destroy the whole area.”

Government agencies acknowledge having a limited view of the accidents, which often happen in remote places and, unlike oil spills, don’t produce dramatic images of birds flailing in black goo and tourist beaches fouled. Regulators rely on private operators to notify them, and it’s not always required. For example, Oklahoma exempts reporting of most spills of less than 10 barrels, or 420 gallons.

The loudest whistleblowers are often property owners, who must allow drilling access to their land if they don’t own the mineral rights.

“Most ranchers are very attached to the land,” said Jeff Henry, president of the Osage County Cattlemen’s Association in Oklahoma. “It’s where we derive our income, raise our families. It’s who we are.”

A big reason why there are so many spills is the sheer volume of wastewater extracted: about 10 barrels for every barrel of oil, according to an organization of state ground water agencies, or more than 840 billion gallons a year.

Sometimes, the exact cause is never determined. The Johnsons have yet to learn why an underground line ruptured in at least two places on the state-owned land they lease for ranching. A salty, oily odor wafted heavily on the breeze when Justin Johnson reached the site in October 2010.

“I was just totally and thoroughly disgusted,” he said.

New Mexico Salt Water Disposal Co. acknowledged responsibility. No fines were levied because the leak was accidental. Vice President Rory McGinn blamed practices and materials the company no longer uses, saying in an interview that “an enormous amount of money” has gone into upgrades.

The company said much the same in 2005 after earlier spills, telling the state in a letter obtained through a records request it had spent nearly $250,000 on higher-grade pipe, tanks and valves and “our objective and goal is to be 100 percent maintenance and environmentally safe in our operation.”

The company has had a dozen spills since 2003, said Larry Behrens of the New Mexico Department of Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources.

Despite such incidents, relatively few farmers and ranchers complain publicly. Some get royalty checks for wells on their property. Others don’t want to be seen as opposing an industry that is the economic backbone of their communities.

“If they treat us right, we’re all friends of oil,” said Mike Artz, a grower in North Dakota’s Bottineau County who lost a five-acre barley crop in 2013 after a saltwater pipeline rupture. “But right now, it’s just a horse running without the bridle.”

Oil and gas developers said they have everything to gain from stopping spills, which cost them money for cleanup and soil restoration.

Sara Hughes, spokeswoman for pipeline operator Kinder Morgan, said her company has lowered water injection pressure and installed additional leak-detection devices on its lines since its spill on Stoker’s land.

“We are committed to public safety, protection of the environment and operation of our facilities in compliance with all applicable rules and regulations,” Hughes said.

In North Dakota, where the spills increased at a higher rate than the well count during the boom years of 2009-’14, pipelines near waterways must have leak prevention devices but not those elsewhere; critics said that shows the oil industry’s political clout. Lynn Helms, director of the North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources, said more devices would be costly and wouldn’t necessarily catch small leaks.

Tessa Sandstrom, of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said the industry is cooperating with scientists studying prevention and land restoration. When spills do happen, she said, most are cleaned up within a year.

But Bottineau County grain farmer Daryl Peterson said it took years of prodding before regulators ordered an oil company to dig up 300 truckloads of tainted soil on his property and replace it. The soil is still salty, he said.

Sublette, the University of Tulsa engineer, said soil excavation and replacement is unreliable because some operators “bring in the nastiest stuff they can find.” He recommends extensive flushing with fresh water to remove salts from the zone where plants take root, then rebuilding the soil with nurturing additives. Even done correctly, it can take years to get plants growing again.

Similar methods were used on the Johnsons’ pastures, but father and son said the land has not come back to life.

“It will never, ever be like it was,” Justin Johnson said, giving a bleached-white stone a desultory kick. “It will never fully recover.”

___

This story has been corrected to reflect a change in the overall spill number to more than 175 million gallons instead of more than 180 million gallons, and to correct the total spill volume for 2014 to 33.5 million.

___

Associated Press Data Journalist Dan Kempton in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Fired regulator: Governor pushed to waive oil safeguards

Repost from the Associated Press

Fired regulator: Governor pushed to waive oil safeguards

By Ellen Knickmeyer, Sep 4, 3:32 PM EDT
AP Photo
FILE – In this Wednesday May 27, 2015 file photo, California Gov. Jerry Brown addresses the California State Association of Counties Legislative Conference in Sacramento, Calif. California’s top oil and gas regulators repeatedly warned Gov. Jerry Brown’s senior aides in 2011 that the governor’s orders to override key safeguards in granting oil industry permits would violate state and federal laws protecting the state’s groundwater from contamination, one of the former officials has testified. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — California’s top oil and gas regulators repeatedly warned Gov. Jerry Brown’s senior aides in 2011 that the governor’s orders to override key environmental safeguards in granting oil industry permits would violate state and federal laws protecting groundwater from contamination, one of the former officials has testified.

Brown fired the regulators on Nov. 3, 2011, one day after what the official says was a final order from the governor to bypass provisions of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and grant permits for oilfield injection wells. Brown later boasted publicly that the dismissals led to a speed up of oilfield permitting.

In a newly filed court declaration, Derek Chernow, Brown’s former acting director of the state Department of Conservation, also alleged that former Gov. Gray Davis urged fellow Democrat Brown in a phone call to fire Chernow and Elena Miller, the state’s oil and gas supervisor.

Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, labeled the allegations “baseless.”

“The expectation – clearly communicated – was and always has been full compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act,” Westrup said Thursday.

This year, however, the state acknowledged that hundreds of the oilfield operations approved after the firings are now polluting the state’s federally protected underground supplies of water for drinking and irrigation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the state until 2017 to resolve what state officials conceded were more than 2,000 permits improperly given to oil companies to inject oilfield production fluid and waste into protected water aquifers. An earlier AP analysis of the permits found state records showed more than 40 percent of those were granted in the four years since Brown took office.

Chernow’s declaration, obtained by The Associated Press, was contained in an Aug. 21 court filing in a lawsuit brought by a group of Central Valley farmers who allege that oil production approved by Brown’s administration has contaminated their water wells. The lawsuit also cites at least $750,000 in contributions that oil companies made within months of the firings to Brown’s campaign for a state income tax increase.

Westrup denied the oil companies’ support for Brown’s tax-increase campaign was related to the firings, saying, “the governor’s focus is doing what’s best for California, and that’s what informs his decisions.”

Robert Stern, former general counsel of the state’s ethics agency and the architect of a 1970s state political reform act, said there was nothing illegal about Brown receiving the oil industry contributions for his tax campaign unless they were explicitly in return for firing the oil regulators.

Chernow’s statement describes for the first time the alleged back story of the controversial permit approvals. He declined to comment to the AP and Miller did not respond to interview requests.

Brown’s boasting about the firings to speed up permitting is at odds with his image as a leading proponent of renewable energy and reduced fossil fuel consumption. That reputation led to a recent meeting with Pope Francis to discuss climate change.

Westrup said an ongoing effort by Brown to reduce consumption of fossil fuels in the state by up to 50 percent and the oil industry’s fight against elements of Brown’s climate-change campaign shows “where the administration stands and what it’s fighting for.”

The firings occurred as the governor was scrambling to drum up energy sources, jobs and business and to win support for the ultimately successful statewide vote on tax increases to tackle state budget woes.

Today, with the state in the fourth year of drought and a state of emergency declared by Brown, protecting the adequacy and purity of water supplies for farms and cities is a paramount priority.

In the declaration in the farmers’ case, Chernow said he and Miller were under intense pressure from the oil industry as well as the Brown administration to relax permitting standards for injection wells that oil companies use to pump production fluid and waste underground.

Chernow testified he was in the office of John Laird, Brown’s secretary of Natural Resources, in early October 2011 when Laird took a call from Brown. Laird told Chernow that Brown said he had just received a call from Davis, then acting as legal counsel for Occidental Petroleum, the country’s fourth-biggest oil Company.

Brown said Davis and Occidental had demanded Brown fire Chernow and Miller over what Occidental complained was the slow pace of issuing drilling permits, according to Chernow.

Davis declined to comment Thursday.

A few weeks later, on Nov. 2, 2011, Chernow and Miller received a call from Brown’s energy adviser, Cliff Rechtschaffen, who urged the regulators to “immediately fast-track” approval of new oilfield permits, according to Chernow’s filing.

Miller replied that what Brown aides and the oil industry were pressing for “violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, and that the EPA agreed” with that conclusion, Chernow said. In response, according to Chernow, Rechtschaffen told them “this was an order from Governor Brown, and must be obeyed.”

Chernow and Miller were fired the following day.

Memos sent to Department of Conservation staff the next month – obtained through state public records laws by lawyers for the farmers – allegedly detail some ways state oilfield regulators were told they could now bypass some federally mandated environmental reviews and approve permits.

The state, under increasing pressure from the EPA, this year and last ordered the shutdown of 23 improperly permitted oilfield wells posing the most immediate threat to nearby water wells.

Current officials in the Department of Conservation said they believe the actual number of flawed permits granted under Brown is lower than the 46 percent the state records show, but they have not provided alternate figures.

The state improperly issued permits, they said, because of misunderstandings and poor record-keeping, rather than willful decisions by Brown’s administration.

The safeguards at issue in the alleged permitting dispute were a “very fundamental” part of the federal Safe Drinking Water Act’s protections against oilfield contamination, said David Albright, manager of the EPA’s California groundwater office, this week.

California “has a huge amount of work to do” to bring its regulation of oilfield injection wells into compliance with federal law, said Jared Blumenfeld, the regional EPA administrator in California. Blumenfeld cited a “sea change” over the past year in state compliance efforts, however.

Executives of Occidental and Aera Energy at the time thanked Brown for his involvement in the oilfield permitting process, as Occidental CEO Steven Chazren noted in a January 2012 call with financial analysts, two months after top regulators were fired.

That month, Occidental became the first major oil company to come out in support of the Brown’s tax measure and donated the first of $500,000 to Brown’s campaign for the tax referendum. A month later, Aera donated $250,000.

Margita Thompson, a spokeswoman at what is now the independent California spin-off of Occidental, California Resources Council, said that all the farmers’ allegations were “wholly without merit.” Cindy Pollard, spokeswoman for Aera, said the company often donates to revenue-raising state campaigns. “Aera’s contributions were not quid pro quo,” she said.

 

Want proof that fracking endangers residential well water?

Repost from DeSmog Blog

Exclusive: Pennsylvania Family Dealing with Water Contamination Linked to Fracking Industry

The Chichura family has flammable well water, most likely due to a fracking job gone wrong in Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna County. Their water well, along with those of four of their neighbors, was allegedly contaminated with methane in the fall of 2011, shortly after Cabot Oil started drilling operations near their home.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) confirmed the Chichuras had methane in their water on September 21, 2011, and advised them to equip their well with a working vent to avoid a possible ignition.

The contamination of wells is not an anomaly. The DEP identified 245 sites potentially contaminated by the fracking industry between 2008 and 2014.  …(continued)

Repost from DeSmog Blog

Texas Family’s Water Well Explodes, Burns 4-Year Old, Father and Grandfather — and Fracking to Blame, Lawsuit Alleges

A family in Texas, including a four-year old, her parents and her grandfather, were severely burned when their water well ignited into a massive fireball after methane from nearby fracked wells contaminated their water supply, a newly filed lawsuit against EOG Resources and several related companies alleges.

Cody Murray, a 38-year old who previously worked in the oil and gas industry, suffered burns to his face, arms, neck and back that were so severe that he was left permanently disabled, no longer able to drive because the nerve damage has left him unable to grip steering wheels or other objects. Cody’s young daughter, who was over 20 feet away from the pump house when it ignited, suffered first and second degree burns, as did Jim Murray, Cody’s father.

The cause of the blast? Nearby fracked wells, the lawsuit alleges.  …(continued)

 

 

BENICIA HERALD LETTER: Allowing crude by rail is asking for trouble, Kathy Kerridge

Repost from the Benicia Herald
[Editor:  No link is provided for this letter because the Benicia Herald does not publish letters in its online edition.  A version of this letter also appeared in the Contra Costa Times.  – RS]

Allowing crude by rail is asking for trouble

By Kathy Kerridge, August 16, 2015, Benicia Herald

It’s time for Benicia and California to say no to bringing in crude oil by rail (CBR). This is the highly explosive and flammable Bakken crude from North Dakota, which exploded in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killing 47.  This is what Valero wants to bring into Benicia and other refineries want to bring into the Bay Area.  There have been 30 major crude by rail accidents since 2012, including the latest on July 17 in Montana that spilled 35,000 gallons from a train that was going the legal speed limit.

The refineries also want to bring in tar sands crude from Alberta, Canada.  A spill of tar sands crude in water cannot be cleaned up.  The substances that dilute the tar sands (like benzene) so it can be transported evaporate and the tar sands sink to the bottom of the water.  $1 billion, yes that’s right billion, has been spent on the Kalamazoo River spill of tar sands and the river is still not clean.  Do we want a spill on the Benicia Rail Bridge into the Carquinez Strait or one in the Suisun Marsh?  How about the Feather River Canyon where a train carrying corn recently derailed sending its cargo into the river?

Say no to CRB going over high hazard areas.  Every rail line into the state goes through one.  Say no to CBR by earthquake faults.   Say no to trains carrying crude in cars designed to carry corn syrup.  Say no to the new cars which have also split and spilled in recent derailments.  Say no to bomb trains going through densely populated areas like Sacramento, Davis, and the East Bay.  Just say no to putting people, our water sources and our environment at risk