70-foot wastewater geyser reflects New Mexico’s latest oil field challenge

Driving the highway between Loving and Carlsbad on May 19, Jackie Onsurez noticed something unusual rising above an oilfield site operated by NGL Energy Partners. As he got closer, he realized the 70-foot plume was not smoke but a geyser of toxic oil field wastewater — known as produced water — erupting from a pipe.

Onsurez, an engineer and member of New Mexico’s State Emergency Response Commission, immediately began calling NGL, 911, the New Mexico Environment Department and local officials. A roughneck arrived moments later and tried unsuccessfully to stop the spray.

“The only people with protective gear were the firefighters when they arrived.” The fire department soon cordoned off the area, and NGL workers shut down the leak. By then, Onsurez had spent roughly 30 minutes at the site, though it remains unclear how long the wastewater had been spewing before he arrived.

According to a report filed with the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, a 1-inch nipple on a high-pressure injection line broke, causing the blowout. NGL reported that 40 barrels of produced water escaped, with 10 recovered and the remaining 30 flowing into the ditch.

State officials said samples were collected from the site and are awaiting analysis. ...NGL has agreed to handle cleanup efforts.

By New Mexico standards, however, the Loving spill was relatively small. Between Jan. 1 and May 19, oil companies reported 356 wastewater spills statewide totaling more than 15,000 barrels. The largest this year released 2,000 barrels near a neighborhood in Farmington.

Still, the visible geyser highlighted one of the oil industry’s fastest-growing controversies: what to do with the massive and growing volume of produced water generated by drilling.

More and summary from the article:

Last year New Mexico oil producers generated more than 2.7 billion barrels of wastewater — more than triple the amount of oil extracted. Produced water is highly saline and often contains petroleum compounds, fracking chemicals and naturally occurring radioactive materials. Many fracking additives are protected as trade secrets, and regulators and emergency responders may not know exactly what contaminants are present. This lack of information has resulted in New Mexico currently prohibiting using produced water beyond oil field operations.

Though Texas has demonstrated successful cleanup of the water, environmentalists in New Mexico claim the science is "unsettled." To date, by regulation, they have succeeded in preventing reuse of the water. Therefore the water is either disposed of in deep injection wells below any fresh water, or transported by truck or pipeline to Texas for treatment or disposal. Deep well disposal itself has problems as volumes and pressure may cause small earthquakes.

The fact that this story appeared in the lead in today's edition will do nothing to quell the fears of the Karen's in ABQ and Santa Fe that NM should not be in the O&G business no matter that it provides for 40+% of NM state revenues. A bit of scrutiny on the article's author shows that he is not a member of the Journal's reporting team but instead is affiliated with Capital & Main. In a footnote to the article, Capital & Main is described as "a Los Angeles-based online publication that reports on matters such as climate change, economic inequality, threats to democracy, healthcare, immigration, and hate and extremism" so their point of view can't be called neutral.

One more item of note, and probably good that it wasn't mentioned, is that produced water usually contains hydrogen sulfide which in small concentrations smells like rotten eggs. In larger concentrations (>500 ppm) it will immediately kill a person. In the oil patch it is called poison gas and is so pervasive that all employees working here wear H2S monitors that alert at 10 or 15 ppm. So the reason to stay away or at the least upwind from the spaying wastewater is not the concentration of constituents in the water, but the likelihood of inhalation of possibly deadly concentrations of H2S.

NM list PING!

I may not PING for all New Mexico articles. To see New Mexico articles by topic click here: New Mexico Topics

To see NM articles by keyword, click here: New Mexico Keywords

To see the NM Message Page, click here: New Mexico Messages

(The NM list is available on my FR homepage for FR member use; its use in the News Forum should not be for trivial or inconsequential posts. Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)
(For ABQ Journal articles requiring a subscription, you may be allowed a number of free article views.)

lol.

“Protective equipment” for salt water. It does have trace amounts of other things and you wouldn’t want to drink it. But it’s hardly a hazmat situation.

That said, it’s salt water and will absolutely destroy the surface very quickly.

This is almost as hysterically written as the reporter who claimed he had bruising from shooting an AR15 and PTSD from popping off a few rounds at a range.

Anyway, sounds like a mess that needs to be taken care of.

Happens.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.