Promised Land, The Movie Gets It Right

Promised Land, The Movie Gets It Right                                                   January 16, 2013

Introduction
Last weekend was the first general release of the Gus Van Sandt – Matt Damon movie Promised Land. Dr Smith and I went to see it with a sense of trepidation and expectation – would the movie be a replay of GasLand, a string of unrelated videos or a real movie with characters and plot? We came away satisfied with the movie and glad to have invested the $10 (no popcorn). But I want to spoil it for you – this movie is not about environmental threats, it’s about local politics and as such it has the greatest relevance to the oil and gas operators and those investors in the saltwater disposal business.

Promised Land portrays life in a small town in Pennsylvania, rural life is removed from life in the big cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia but running through the movie is the message that rural farm life is an illusion; farmers must have second or third “real jobs” in order to stay on the farm. The unreality of farms is a thick thread that runs through the movie. Into this rural paradise come two landmen for a big oil and gas company that wants to develop the shale-gas under the farms and town. Big money is thrown around to get leases signed until a local high school teacher starts talking about the dangers of fracking. The town’s venal, cowardly mayor calls a town election to decide whether or not to allow fracking. The rest of the movie leads up to the municipal election to vote on permission for the company to drill and frack. Two extremely likable young men are the protagonists in the story; this makes us pay close attention to their words and expressions because we don’t want to dislike either one.

The movie presents no evidence for or against fracking but citizens are told to read about it, always good advice for us citizens. But what happens when information is all over the geographical map and all over the trustworthiness map? Does bad fracking news from Wyoming have any applicability to western Pennsylvania? Is a spokesman from the Sierra Club more trustworthy than one from Chesapeake Energy? The first question has sound technical answers; the second question has no answer. It has been the tradition in The West to relegate those hard questions to politics. But when the questions threaten to impinge on business interests, especially big business, we recoil. Many of us cheer a new business start-up based on a strange, new idea; we’d be disgusted if our mayor suddenly forbade the owners from starting that business. If an EPA regulator had the power to disallow drilling when she thought the prospect was too weak, the oil sector would be up in arms – real arms. 

I see that Promised Land has the zeitgeist of 2013 America dead right – citizens claim the right to curtail business development that they feel harmful to them. I have seen or read about these citizen protests several times throughout my history in the oil business but more frequently in the past ten years. I will describe the histories of five factual confrontations between oil companies and citizens; maybe these narratives will help explain the movie and will convince owners and investors in disposal wells that this trend is serious for our industry.

1.      Pauls Valley, Oklahoma: I have mentioned this confrontation elsewhere in this blog. Citizens blocked the installation of a disposal well in rural Garvin County in the heart of Oklahoma’s oil country. A permit had been received earlier but the well was not drilled before the permit expired. The new permit application was protested by more than 1200 citizens who were concerned about groundwater supplies, truck traffic, and the potential for serious earthquakes in the area. The permit applicant presented the facts at a town meeting and at the permit hearing at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. The planned well was found to be in compliance with all state regulations. Citizens presented data extraneous to the permitting requirements but important to the community – noise, dust and road damage. Citizens were allowed to present arguments despite lacking legal representation. The citizens were also allowed ex parte (one side only) discussions with hearing officers. There is in fact no written procedures for hearings with pro se (without lawyer) protestants and no guidance about hearing arguments outside the jurisdiction of the OCC (e.g. noise, dust, and road damage). The Pauls Valley hearing showed the danger of giving industry or citizens free rein. Clearly citizens have the right to protest and to state their objections but in front of the OCC those objections need to be restricted to agency jurisdiction. The objections listed above are indeed the jurisdiction of the Garvin County Commissioners. Commissioners’ meetings are public, do not require legal representation, and often concern themselves with traffic issues.

 

2.      Erick, Oklahoma: Citizens complained to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission about noxious smells from a commercial disposal well. The citizens suspected the operator of illegal dumping. Several citizens lived nearby a busy disposal well at the edge of town and citizens complained about noxious fumes coming from the well; they stated that they had not smelled such chemicals before and that is was not just crude oil and condensate. When the citizens called the OCC field inspector he came onsite but by then the smell had faded. The OCC talked with the disposal well operator and he said that he had taken several loads of “frack flow-back” lately that contained volatile chemicals with strong odors. The OCC decided to sample air at the edge of the SWD facility when odors were noticed. The sampling was coordinated with citizens and with the well operator so there was sufficient lead-time. Samples were taken by opening hand-held stainless steel vessels that had been evacuated in the lab. After the vessels filled with ambient air they were transported to the Tulsa City-County air quality lab for analyses. Various pollutants were found in the ppb (parts per billion) range but the levels of pollutants were much lower than good days in Houston and New York City. There are no limits set for these air pollutants at oil and gas facilities in the state of Oklahoma or nationally. The lab data and level of effort by the OCC convinced the citizens of Erick that their air, although odorous at times, was safe to breathe.

3.      Bozeman, Montana: Citizens complained to the Governor and the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation protesting natural gas development. Citizens opposed the drilling for coalbed methane (CBM) in a subdivision of Bozeman. A Texas natural gas producer had applied for drill permits within the municipality of Bozeman, Montana; there had never been any previous production in the vicinity of the city. At the time there was wide media coverage of conflict between landowners and CBM developers in Wyoming. Wyoming ranchers told of failed water wells and natural gas fouling their water. The area of Wyoming was unique in that fresh water and natural gas are commingled naturally in coal seams less than 1000 feet deep. When CBM wells are drilled and fracked, water wells nearby can be affected in different ways, therefore the state of Wyoming requires that every CBM operator tests water wells near their development and signs an agreement with the surface owner pledging to replace any affected water wells. In response to public pressure, the County of Gallatin (including Bozeman) passed laws prohibiting the drilling or development of CBM within the county borders. Blanket prohibitions against legitimate enterprise are not good ideas for making government work.

 

4.      New Brunswick, Canada: Citizens protested the development of shale-gas within the province. Eco-terrorism may have been involved. Several large companies moved into the province to gain a foot-hold with leases and seismic; this is a region that had not previously known oil and gas development. Citizens became alarmed and concerned that air and water would be impacted by shale-gas development including fracking. Seismic vehicles and surface equipment was repeatedly vandalized and contractors became concerned for their physical safety. At the present time all shale-gas operators have left the province for greener pastures.

 

5.      British Columbia: Enbridge and its investors seek to locate a pipeline from the Fort McMurray oil-sands west to the Pacific Coast of B.C.  One of the areas being crossed is a coastal rainforest frequented by the white “spirit bears” as shown below:

 

http://s.ngm.com/2011/08/kermode-bear/img/kermode-bear-615.jpg

 

The Gateway pipeline is designed to transport crude oil from oil-sands projects to a terminal on the coast from export to Asia. The pipeline project is drawing protesters who see potential environmental damage to wilderness resources. A recent article describing recent events (http://www.vancouverobserver.com/politics/tense-final-day-enbridge-northern-gateway-joint-review-panel-hearings-victoria) tells part of a familiar story with heavy industry facing citizens who lack trust in industry and government and feel disenfranchised.

These five factual episodes and the story contained in Promised Land point to a growing political confrontation between concerned citizens and fossil-fuel developers. Public outreach by the oil and gas operator can dispel some misconceptions and education by government agencies can help but the bulk of the conflict entails lack of trust in industry, not lack of knowledge by the public. As the Pauls Valley and Promised Land battles make clear, there are few adequate vehicles for handling political-environmental disputes in a regulatory framework. A regulatory agency such as the OCC can evaluate technical issues such as the protection of groundwater by surface casing but they cannot evaluate road noise or dust effects and most importantly they cannot deal with public trust issues. Until oil and gas agencies adopt adequate rules, oil operators and private citizens will be made to fend for themselves when faced with development of shale-gas and tar-sands or installation of disposal wells. This situation introduces another measure of financial risk for operators and their investors. Operators and investors must demand improved hearing processes that put citizens and operators on equal footing.

  

 

 

Does saltwater disposal cause earthquakes?

.Underground Injection Issues - Seismicity                                    December 21, 2012
The Saltwater Disposal Institute (SWDI) specializes in economical, safe management of Oil and Gas wastes, primarily waste water and primarily via deep-well injection. We will publish this blog on a regular basis to shed light on regulatory trends and industry responses for the benefit of general public and industry investors.

Deep-well injection in the news:
Injection wells, especially those associated with the Shale-Gas play; appear every day in the national news media. Conflicting stories often appear side-by-side in print, internet, and on broadcast news. Well owners and investors must be aware of potential environmental liabilities associated with disposal wells and earthquakes. Several well-known and researched seismic events form the nugget of these news stories; summaries are provided below:

Photo: Amy Sancetta, A.P. With the skyline of Youngstown in the distance, a brine injection well owned by Northstar Disposal Services, LLC works. The company has halted operations at the well, which disposes of brine used in gas and oil drilling, after a series of earthquakes hit the Youngstown area.  Source: Aaron Marshall, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Jan 15, 2012.

Ohio:  Columbia University seismologist John Armbruster reports his evidence and conclusion (http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2012/01/earthquake_raises_issues_on_oi.html) that the deep disposal of thousands of barrels of brine wastewater daily into the Youngstown, Ohio injection well caused the earthquakes including the widely publicized 4.0 quake on New Year's Eve 2011.

Armbruster located the epicenter within a mile of the Northstar Disposal Well at approximately 7,500 feet deep.  The disposal wells adjacent to the epicenter manage large volumes of water originating in the shale-gas play; it injects waste water as deep as 9,180 feet.  The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has shut down four disposal wells in the area.

Arkansas: North Central Arkansas has lately seen a number of unusual quakes that have made the news.  The Guy-Greenbrier swarm culminated in a 4.7 quake on February 27, 2011.  The quakes had depths measured between 3.9 and 2.4 miles (12,000 to 20,000 feet). (http://deathby1000papercuts.com/2011/04/new-earthquake-swarm-in-arkansas-april-8-2011-dozen-small-to-moderate-quakes-rattle-greenbrier/ )  The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has ordered injection wells in that part of the state to be shut-in until further decisions can be made.     

Texas: The Dallas-Fort Worth area has been the location of recent noticeable earthquakes.  Frohlich et al,    (http://startelegram.typepad.com/files/earthquake-study-10march2010.pdf ) map locations of natural and induced quakes around DFW and relate several to SWDs.  In 2008 and 2009 several clusters of quakes occurred with strengths of 1.5 to 3.3 Richter, correlated in location and depth to large oil and gas disposal wells in the area of Cleburne, Texas. The wells have been voluntarily shut-in by their operators. Depths of the quakes match up well to the Ellenburger injection zone. The map produced by Frohlich et al illustrates the phenomenon - while many Barnett shale-gas wells operate in the area of the quakes, two large disposal wells are also located in the area and only one disposal well is closely correlated to recent seismic activity. At the same time, quakes extend less than a mile from that particular disposal well. This is clear evidence that it is the disposal well, not the shale-gas wells that have initiated these particular quakes.

Colorado: In 1967 a 5.5 magnitude earthquake shook the area of Colorado around the Rocky Mountain Arsenal where a very large, 12,180-foot deep disposal well was injecting large volumes of hazardous wastes (that is, not associated in any way with oil and gas activity).   (http://foodfreedom.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/earthquake-hazard-associated-with-deep-well-injection-report-to-epa-nicholson-wesson-1990.pdf)  The quake detectors located the epicenter of the larger quakes at the base of the injection zone in the deep well.  The USGS and the EPA were convinced of a causal relationship and the well was shut-in, although the strongest quakes occurred after the shut-in. 

Oklahoma: On November 2011 several earthquakes occurred in Central Oklahoma. The swarm of events culminated with a November 5^th 5.6 magnitude temblor that was noticeable over a large portion of the state. The quakes were centered around Lincoln County.  Dr. Katie Keranen of the University of Oklahoma presented a paper at the American Geophysical Union conference this month entitled Fluid injection triggering of 2011 earthquake sequence in Oklahoma, here is the abstract of that paper:

Significant earthquakes are increasingly occurring within the United States midcontinent, with nine having moment-magnitude (Mw) ≥4.0 and five with Mw≥5.0 in 2011 alone. In parallel, wastewater injection into deep sedimentary formations has increased as unconventional oil and gas resources are developed. Injected fluids may lower normal stress on existing fault planes, and the correlation between injection wells and earthquake locations led to speculation that many 2011 earthquakes were triggered by injection. The largest earthquake potentially related to injection (Mw5.7) struck in November 2011 in central Oklahoma. Here we use aftershocks to document the fault patterns responsible for the M5.7 earthquake and a prolific sequence of related events, and use the timing and spatial correlation of the earthquakes with injection wells and subsurface structures to show that the earthquakes were likely triggered by fluid injection. The aftershock sequence details rupture along three distinct fault planes, the first of which reaches within 250 meters of active injection wells and within 1 km of the surface. This earthquake sequence began where fluids are injected at low pressure into a depleted oil reservoir bound by faults that effectively seal fluid flow. Injection into sealed compartments allows reservoir pressure to increase gradually over time, suggesting that reservoir volume, in this case, controls the triggering timescale. This process allows multi-year lags between the commencement of fluid injection and triggered earthquakes.

This paper will be used by critics of deep-well disposal to oppose new and existing permits for commercial disposal wells. Operators and investors need to be aware of this information – it may be possible that large disposal projects can cause significant earthquakes.

Colorado: The August 23, 2011 quake outside of Trinidad Colorado was described by the USGS as a 5.3 magnitude quake originating from a point 2.5 miles below the surface. Author Art McGarr of the USGS and colleagues totaled earthquakes in the Raton Basin and noted a total of five quakes 3.0 and larger from 1970 to 2001 and 95 quakes 3.0 or higher from 2001 to 2011; the annual rate for these two periods therefore increased more than 50 times from 0.167 per year to 9.5 per year. The USGS study – Present Triggered Seismicity Sequence in the Raton Basin of Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico – was presented in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union annual conference on Dec 5, 2012. Following is the abstract:

The occurrence of an earthquake of magnitude (M) 5.3 near Trinidad, CO, on 23 August 2011 renewed interest in the possibility that an earthquake sequence in this region that began in August 2001 is the result of industrial activities. Our investigation of this seismicity, in the Raton Basin of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, led us to conclude that the majority, if not all of the earthquakes since August 2001 have been triggered by the deep injection of wastewater related to the production of natural gas from the coal-bed methane field here. The evidence that this earthquake sequence was triggered by wastewater injection is threefold. First, there was a marked increase in seismicity shortly after major fluid injection began in the Raton Basin. From 1970 through July of 2001, there were five earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger located in the Raton Basin. In the subsequent 10 years from August of 2001 through the end of 2011, there were 95 earthquakes of magnitude 3 and larger. The statistical likelihood of this rate increase occurring naturally was determined to be 0.01%. Second, the vast majority of the seismicity is located close (within 5km) to active disposal wells in this region. Additionally, this seismicity is primarily shallow, ranging in depth between 2 and 8 km, with the shallowest seismicity occurring within 500 m depth of the injection intervals. Finally, these wells have injected exceptionally high volumes of wastewater. The 23 August 2011 M5.3 earthquake, located adjacent to two high-volume disposal wells, is the largest earthquake to date for which there is compelling evidence of triggering by fluid injection activities; indeed, these two nearly-co-located wells injected about 4.9 million cubic meters of wastewater during the period leading up to the M5.3 earthquake, more than 7 times as much as the disposal well at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal that caused damaging earthquakes in the Denver, CO, region in the 1960s. Much of the seismicity since 2001 falls on a 15km-long, NE-trending lineation of seismicity dipping steeply to the SE. The focal mechanisms of the largest earthquakes since mid-2001 are consistent with both the direction of the seismicity lineation and the regional tectonic regime of east-west extension centered on the Rio Grande rift.

While a cause-and-effect relationship has not been demonstrated as yet for the Trinidad quakes, the circumstantial evidence is persuasive. Deep well injection apparently does induce this seismicity. Many of the quakes have been minor but a 5.3 magnitude is certainly large enough to damage local structures.

Dr. McGarr also presented a compilation of nine injection – earthquake pairs across the continent.  Included is a plot of magnitude versus injection volume.  This plot could be used as an approximation of maximum injection volume that can be allowed before reaching a maximum allowable earthquake.  For example, if the agency decrees that induced earthquakes can be no more than 3.0 magnitude (approximately the smallest event detected by people in the open), then an individual injection well could only inject a total volume of 7,500 bbls (1,200 m³). 

The methodology used by Dr. McGarr should be utilized to zero in on a more accurate determination for the safe injection limit that could then be incorporated into state and federal regulations. While there are geological factors that might affect induced seismicity (such as proximity to faults, brittleness, etc.), these factors are poorly known in most areas and around most SWD wells. The best solution to defining an injection limit is to plot as many SWDs from varied settings to arrive at a single, conservative limit that may be scientifically applied to all geological settings. Whatever the methodology, more data is required.

Advice to SWD owners and investors: Disposal wells are most often drilled in areas of good subsurface control and good geological knowledge.  In most cases seismic information should exist to predict the presence of large faults at depths similar to the injection zones.  It would certainly behoove the owner-operator of the disposal well to include documentation of faulting in the area with the disposal well permit application. Going further, it would be valuable to install seismic monitoring devices near the SWD well, interpretation of the monitoring records could be performed by the operator, the regulatory agency, or research academics interested in the field. It is up to the operator to determine the cost:benefit calculation for installing earthquake monitors.

About the author:  Bruce G. Langhus, Ph.D. is a petroleum geologist with over 45 years' experience in oil and gas business including water-flood design and operation; Class I, II, and III disposal well location, permitting and operation; and injection well remediation.  Dr. Langhus has been the Class II Program Manager in Oklahoma, the second largest UIC program in the country.  He was a founding partner of ALL Consulting, a successful geotechnical consultancy in Tulsa, OK.  Dr. Langhus is now part of Amerex Resources, operators of disposal facilities in Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, and North Dakota.