Protecting the prairie: Professor calls for tallgrass standards in oil, gas rules Bob Hamilton, director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, walks past oil-field equipment in Osage County. (Photo by Rip Stell) PAWHUSKA – As Kerry Sublette walked through the knee-high grass, he kept finding new damage. Sublette, a Sarkeys professor of environmental engineering at the University of Tulsa, was following a flow line to a tank battery on an oil lease on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. “Here is a salt spill with some oil in it, too,” Sublette said. “This is pretty typical: You have mostly saltwater in the line with some oil, and when you have a spill, the oil is filtered by the vegetation, so you have it accumulating near the source of the leak, but the saltwater follows the gradient.” Sublette, who is also director of the TU Center for Environmental Research and Technology, has studied the soil of the tallgrass prairie for years. On Wednesday he toured several spill-damaged sites with Bob Hamilton, director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, and John Hurd, Osage County Cattlemen’s Association Oil and Gas Committee chairman. Hamilton and Hurd pointed out rust on the pipe. “Saltwater inside a steel pipe,” Hamilton said, ”not a good situation.” Sublette is pushing for standards and steps to be added to a proposed oil and gas operators manual being assembled by landowners, operators and state and federal regulators. The manual is the product of a series of meetings between landowners, producers and regulators over the past three months. It’s the first revision since the original was published 17 years ago. Sublette said he only wants to return damaged soil to productivity. During a public meeting in Pawhuska this month, he called for specific metrics to be included in the 140-page manual. Sublette criticized the manual, which the regulators called a draft, as being vague. The manual has no figures or any outline about how to clean up salt or oil in heavy concentrations. The current handbook has a link to an Oklahoma Corporation Commission Web page that outlines spill cleanup. The manual is under review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. It is designed to be a how-to guide for exploration and production of oil and gas wells and offer steps of action in the event of a mishap and contact information when there is an emergency. No one wants to pollute or destroy property, said Rob Lyon, a longtime oil producer in Osage County and president of the Osage Producers Association. Restoring any land damaged by production is something the OPA openly supports, Lyon said. “If there is a consensus among the OPA membership for inserting guidelines in the manual, we will address it. But the OPA is neutral on the position now,” Lyon said. Accidents happen, Lyon said. “It costs you more money to clean up a mess than to keep things clean and maintained correctly,” Lyon said. “Obviously, the BIA and Osage (Nation) stakeholders do not want a mess, because when that happens, you have to shut down your production to clean it up, and that means lost revenue.” Operators have every incentive to do it right, Lyon said. Once there is a spill, the operator is expected to contact the landowner, Hamilton said. Hurd said landowners must remain vigilant, however. “You prefer that the oil company contact you,” Hurd said. Hurd manages the 43,000-acre Bluestem Ranch south of Pawhuska. “They are getting better about contacting us,” Hurd said. “But we have to constantly monitor. As the landowner, you are like the policeman.” There are two issues with a brine spill, Sublette said. “One problem is the excess salinity in the soil,” Sublette said. The result is that plants cannot get enough water out of the soil and they die. “It is the same if you drop too much fertilizer in your yard: You create a dead spot,” Sublette said. The other issue is too much sodium, which displaces calcium, Sublette said. Calcium holds the soil together like the plastic sack keeps a loaf of bread together, Sublette said. Any excess sodium removes the calcium. It is like taking the bread out of the sack. “It would be like throwing the loaf of bread up in the air: All the individual pieces fly apart,” Sublette said. The result is the soil collapses and becomes like stone. “It causes the soil to pack tightly, and then any irrigation or rainfall does not penetrate the soil,” Sublette said. “It is like watering a parking lot.” Sublette favors treating the damaged area by first breaking it up. Next, it’s best to either allow rainfall to flush the soil or to irrigate it. Finally, adding organic matter and calcium reverses the damage. An option Sublette dismissed was what he referred to as dig and haul, where the damaged soil is scrapped away and discarded, then replaced with fresh soil. “The problem with dig and haul is that more than likely you are bringing in foreign soil and risk creating this island that will not look the same as the area surrounding it,” Sublette said. The new soil also might have invasive plants or seeds and would take years before it blended into the surrounding area. The cost between the two options is significant, Sublette said. “Dig and haul could cost upwards of $100,000,” Sublette said. “There are a lot of variables, but treating it in place might cost $15,000.” Watching for spills is a never-ending task, Hamilton said. “It is a long-term, everyday challenge,” Hamilton said. “If nothing is done to repair the damaged spot, it only gets worse and then the topsoil is gone. “Then you are down to bedrock and it resembles a moonscape,” he said. journalrecord/files/2014/06/Osage-Land_3_RIP-06-26-14-300x159.jpg
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 10:47:52 +0000
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