Category Archives: Wildlife

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Economy, Environmental review, Mosier OR, Oil spill, Wildlife

Oil industry desperate: claims oil spills are good for wildlife and the economy

Repost from Hazmat Magazine

Testimony Implies Oil Spills Are Good For Wildlife and the Economy

By J Nicholson, August 11, 2016

As reported in thinkprogress.org, the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council (EFSEC) has been holding hearings on the matter of a proposed oil-by-rail terminal that could be built in Vancouver, Washington.  If approved, it would be the largest oil-by-rail facility in the country, handling some 360,000 barrels of crude oil, shipped by train, every single day.  It would also greatly increase the number of oil trains that pass through Washington, adding a total of 155 trains, per week, to the state’s railroads.

Environmentalist activists worry that an increase in oil trains could lead to an rise in oil train derailments, like the kind seen in early June when a Union Pacific train carrying Bakken crude derailed outside the Oregon town of Mosier, spilling 42,000 gallons of oil near the Columbia River.

But according to witnesses that testified before the EFSEC on behalf of Vancouver Energy – the joint venture between Tesoro Corp. and Savage Cos. and the entity behind the Tesoro-Savage terminal proposal – oil spills might not actually be that bad for the environment.

“The Draft Environmental Impact Statement identifies many economic impacts arising from an accident associated with Project operations, but fails to recognize economic activity that would be generated by spill response,” Todd Schatzki, vice president of Analysis Group — a consulting group that released an economic report on the terminal commissioned by Tesoro Savage — wrote in pre-filed testimony.  “When a spill occurs, new economic activity occurs to clean-up contaminated areas, remediate affected properties, and supply equipment for cleanup activities. Anecdotal evidence from recent spills suggests that such activity can be potentially large.”

Schatzki’s pre-filed testimony also includes references to both the Santa Barbara and BP oil spills’ role as job creating events.  He notes that the Santa Barbara oil spill created some 700 temporary jobs to help with cleanup, while the BP spill created short term jobs for 25,000 workers.  Schatzki does not mention that BP has paid individuals and businesses more than $10 billion to make up for economic losses caused by the spill.  Nor does he mention that California’s Economic Forecast Director predicted that the 2015 Santa Barbara oil spill would cost the county 155 jobs and $74 million in economic activity.

For the Columbia River region, the impacts of an oil spill could be equally economically devastating — a report from the Washington Attorney General’s office found that an oil spill could cost more than $170 million in environmental damages.

Keystone Pipeline (Credit: cfact.org)

Schatzki also argued that an oil spill would not necessarily have a large impact on commercial and recreational fisheries.  The Columbia River, which cuts between Oregon and Washington and borders much of the oil-train route, is one of the most important fisheries for both states.  In 2015, the total economic value of Columbia River salmon was $15.5 million, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Those fisheries, however, would not necessarily be impacted by an oil spill, Schatzki argued, because fishermen would simply avoid the areas where the spill had taken place, moving their operations elsewhere.  During cross examination, however, Schatizki said that he did not look at other fishermen’s responses to oil spills when crafting this analysis, nor did he specifically look at the length of fishing seasons or the geographic extent of various fisheries within the Columbia River.

In testimony given on July 7th, another Tesoro-Savage-associated witness, Gregory Challenger, argued that oil spills could actually have benefits for fish and wildlife.  Challenger, who worked with Vancouver Energy to analyze potential impacts and responses in the event of a worst-case discharge at the facility and along the rail line, told the committee that when oil spills cause the closure of certain fisheries or hunting seasons, it’s the animals that benefit.

“An oil spill is not a good thing.  A fishery closure is a good thing.  If you don’t kill half a million fish and they all swim upstream and spawn, that’s more fish than were estimated affected as adults,” Challenger said during his testimony.  “The responsible party is not going to get credit for that, by the way.”

 To prove his point, Challenger cited National Marine Fisheries Service data that showed that 2011, the year after the BP oil spill, had been a record year for seafood catch in the Gulf of Mexico.  And while that’s true, Shiva Polefka, policy analyst for the Center for American Progress’s Ocean Policy program, cautioned against trying to make sweeping statements for how all ecosystems would respond to an oil spill.  Following the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989, researchers discovered that crude oil had soaked into the rocky beaches near the spill site, emitting toxic compounds for years that had long-term adverse impacts on salmon and herring populations.

“Does cutting fishing effort benefit fish?  Absolutely,” Polefka said.  “Enough to mitigate the horrible effects of large oil spills in every case?  Absolutely not.”

During his testimony, Challenger also brought up the Athos 1 oil spill, which sent 264,000 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River in 2004.  The spill, Challenger said, took place during duck hunting season, and forced an early closure for recreational hunting in the area.

“There were an estimate of 3,000 birds affected by the oil, and 13,000 birds not shot by hunters not shot by hunters, because of the closed season,” he said.  “We don’t get any credit for that, but it’s hard to deny that it’s good for birds to not be shot.”

According to U.S. National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), seabirds are especially vulnerable to oil spills, because of the way that oil affects their usually-waterproof feathers — when those feathers become matted with oil, a seabird loses its ability to regulate its temperature.  Often, it will try to preen itself to remove the oil, which only forces the oil into its internal organs, causing problems like diarrhea, kidney and liver damage, and anemia.  Oil can also enter into a seabird’s lungs, leading to respiratory problems.

Opponents of the terminal were quick to dismiss Schatzki and Challenger’s testimony as “hollow,” especially in the face of the recent derailment and oil spill in Mosier.

oil spill07“We see Tesoro moving towards these more desperate arguments to try to downplay the risk of the project,” Dan Serres, conservation director with Columbia Riverkeeper, told ThinkProgress. “It’s hard to imagine that EFSEC will buy the argument that oil spills pose anything other than a grave risk to the Columbia River estuary.”

Following the EFSEC hearings, the committee will submit a recommendation to Washington Governor Jay Inslee to approve, conditionally approve, or deny the project.

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Derailment, Explosion, Oil slick, Oil spill, Water contamination, Wildlife

Mosier groundwater contaminated after derailment spill

Repost from the Hood River News

Mosier groundwater contaminated after derailment spill

By Patrick Mulvihill, July 22, 2016
TREATMENT PLANT in Mosier came back online in mid-June. The city had been trucking sewage to Hood River for treatment while their system was shut down following the train wreck.
TREATMENT PLANT in Mosier came back online in mid-June. The city had been trucking sewage to Hood River for treatment while their system was shut down following the train wreck. Photo by Patrick Mulvihill

Regulators have found contaminated groundwater at the site of the June 3 fiery oil train derailment in Mosier.

There’s no current threat to drinking water or beach users, according to Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), but concerns have surfaced for wildlife health in the Rock Creek wetland near the Columbia River.

“It really isn’t a significant issue of harming human health; however, there is a wetland (nearby) and we’re mainly concerned for animals (living there),” said Bob Schwarz, DEQ project manager.

DEQ staff found high levels of benzene and other volatile organic compounds in one of four test wells crews installed north of the Union Pacific train tracks in Mosier shortly after the train wreck.

Schwarz described the contaminant levels discovered at the east-most site as roughly 10 times higher than the safe amount for animal populations — 1,800 parts of benzene per billion, compared to the ecological risk level of 130 parts.

The wetland ecosystem includes various amphibians and insects, he said.

DEQ has ruled the local drinking water safe because Mosier’s municipal water supply is located about a mile away from the spill area, uphill.

Beach access at Mosier — a popular watersports access spot — has been deemed safe. Booms laid out on the river following the derailment (to catch a small sheen of oil) have since been removed.

Mosier’s wastewater system is also back in action. While heavy green sewage tanks and pump trucks were a common sight during early June, the town no longer trucks sewage to Hood River for treatment.

In the derailment, 16 cars of a 96-car Union Pacific train bearing Bakken crude oil left the tracks in what U.P. ruled an accident due to faulty rail bolts. At least three cars caught fire. Crews extinguished the blaze by early morning the next day.

About 47,000 gallons of oil escaped from four rail cars.

During the wreck, one of the railcars tore off the lid of a sanitary sewer manhole, allowing roughly 13,000 gallons of oil to flow into the nearby Mosier wastewater treatment plant. That system was shut down as crews worked to pump out oil and clean the piping network.

As a temporary fix, workers trucked sewage from Mosier to Hood River for treatment at the municipal plant on Riverside Drive. By June 16, the plant was restored, and shortly after Mosier’s system was fully functional.

A small sheen of oil leaked into the Columbia River through the wastewater system at some point following the wreck, DEQ reported.

Crews cast out absorbing booms into the river to contain the sheen. The exact amount is “unknown but low in volume,” according to a DEQ fact sheet, but it quickly dissipated.

Surface water samples in the river didn’t show any significant contamination from the spill, Schwarz said. He expects the booms will be replaced in September, before autumn rains, in case new rain flushes any oil from the ground into the river.

Agencies reported that the rest of the oil was burned off or absorbed into the soil. Excavation workers disposed of about 29,600 tons of earth that had been contaminated with petroleum.

Oil remaining in the derailed cars was transferred by truck to The Dalles, then hauled by rail to Tacoma, Wash., its original destination. The emptied railcars were taken by truck to Portland for salvage.

Following the derailment, DEQ oversaw the installation of six wells near the train tracks — two extraction wells and four monitoring wells. At the fourth monitoring site, staff found high petroleum levels and other compounds.

Now, DEQ is working with the railroad’s consultant to design an underground system that will treat the contamination, Schwarz said.

The “biosparge” system will include vertical pipes where air will be injected into the ground water. That oxygen will spur growth of naturally occurring microbes that will break down the oil.

“We are still waiting for groundwater flow direction information from CH2M, the consultant for Union Pacific Railroad,” Schwarz said in a July 6 memo.

Local conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper raised concerns about U.P.’s role in the high pollutant levels and called for a third party to steer the cleanup.

“It’s very concerning that we have such high levels of toxic pollutants so close to the river,” Riverkeeper staff attorney Lauren Goldberg said.

She asserted that the public needs to hold state officials accountable so that “U.P. is not at the wheel of this cleanup.”

Schwarz expects a small drill rig and a half dozen or so workers will be on scene in Mosier to implement the treatment system.

For more information, go to deq.state.or.us/lq/ecsi/ecsi.htm .

Air Quality, Carbon emissions, Climate Change, Federal Regulation (U.S.), Land, Oil exports, Public Health, Solar energy, Tax credits, Water quality, Wildlife, Wind energy

Federal spending deal falls short on environment

Repost from the San Francisco Chronicle

Spending deal falls short on environment

By Annie Notthoff, December 17, 2015  |  Annie Notthoff is director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s California advocacy program.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press

The spending and tax policy agreement Congress and the White House have reached to keep the government funded and running includes important wins for health and the environment.

But there’s good news to report, only because of the Herculean efforts of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the White House, who worked tirelessly to block nearly all of the dozens and dozens of proposals Republican leaders were pushing.

Those proposals would have blocked action on climate, clean air, clean water, land preservation and wildlife protection and stripped key programs of needed resources. The Republican leaders’ proposals were the clearest expression yet of their “just say no” approach to environmental policy. They literally have no plan, except to block every movement forward on problems that threaten our health and our planet.

The worst aspect of the budget agreement is another clear indication of Republican leaders’ misplaced priorities — they exacted an end to the decades-long ban on sending U.S. crude oil overseas in this bill, in return for giving up on key elements of their antienvironment agenda.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made that give-away to the oil industry one of his top priorities. It will mean increased oil drilling in the U.S., with all the attendant dangers, with the benefits going to oil companies and overseas purchasers. That won’t help the American public, or the climate. It’s simply an undeserved gift to Big Oil.

In good news, the agreement extends tax credits for wind and solar energy for five years, which will give those industries long-sought certainty about their financing.

Wind and solar will continue to grow by leaps and bounds, helping domestic industry, reducing carbon pollution and making the U.S. less vulnerable to the ups and downs of fossil fuel prices.

Democratic leaders deserve all our thanks for what they were able to keep out of the budget deal. Gone are the vast majority of obstacles Republican leaders tried to throw in the way of environmental protection. Recall for a moment the 100 or more antienvironmental provisions Republican leaders tried to attach to these spending bills. Those included efforts to:

• Block the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which sets the first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants — our best available tool to combat dangerous climate change.

• Roll back the Obama Administration’s Clean Water Rule, which would restore protections for the potential drinking water supplies of 1 in 3 Americans.

• Repeal the EPA’s newly issued health standards to protect us from smog.

• Bar the Interior Department from protecting our streams from the pollution generated by mountaintop removal during coal mining.

• Strip Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves, the greater sage grouse, elephants, the Sonoran Desert tortoise, and other threatened animals.

• Force approval of the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, which President Obama already has rejected.

There’s more work ahead to protect the environment, starting with eliminating the threat of oil drilling in the Arctic and off the Atlantic Coast.

But despite the efforts of Republican congressional leaders to hold the public hostage and bring us to the brink of another government shutdown, a budget deal has emerged that protects environmental progress.

 

Oil drilling, Oil producers, Oil spill, Water contamination, Wildlife

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.”

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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.

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