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Inside Energy: Oil waste

The United States is on the verge of becoming the world’s top producer of oil, thanks to new drilling technology in places like Texas and North Dakota.  But this oil boom is also leading to a boom in toxic oil field waste. In North Dakota last year, 1.75 million tons of oil field waste went to 8 special landfills across the state.  There is growing concern over the dangers this oil field waste poses to air quality.  A recent investigation in Texas by InsideClimateNews and the Center for Public Integrity uncovered a gap in oversight by regulators there.  We get more from Texas Public Radio’s David Martin Davies.

It’s a warm July Monday night in Nordheim, Texas, a town of 300 about 75 miles southeast of San Antonio. Farmers and ranchers are gathering at the old Dancehall to organize against what they see as an environmental threat to their town. Jim Fulbright is a local rancher.

JIM1 - They’re going to dump liquid oil field waste (including) all the chemicals that have to do with fracking, ….. And they have to do something with it.

Two enormous oil waste disposal pits – one 200 acres and the other 575 acres - are being proposed for right outside of town.
Retired School teacher Lyn Janssen is worried about her ranch, settled by her family in 1897.

Lyn1 “there’s really no reason for our area to become the dump site for the Eagle Ford Shale.”

Nordheim is in the middle of the most productive parts of the Eagle Ford Shale; a geological formation saturated in oil. In 2013 it generated $87 billion dollars in total economic output for the state of Texas.

JIM3 I’m not against the oil and gas industry. It’s necessary. The country needs the energy.

The proposed waste facilities near Nordheim will handle millions of barrels of sludge. There are currently at least 68 large commercial surface facilities for oil field waste operating in Texas.

JIM2 :If you’ve ever been around one of these oil rigs or one of these waste dumps - there ain’t no Chanel #5 there – it all stinks.”

It doesn’t just stink – the EPA and others have found that the fumes contain chemicals known to be hazardous to human health, including volatile organic compounds like benzene. But, because oil and gas waste is exempted from federal hazardous waste regulations -- most states don’t require the monitoring of air emissions. So it’s impossible to know whether chemicals are drifting into air at levels high enough to affect public health.

NATSOUND- Rail Road Commission hearing.

UP and under TJONES1: “Now – I just going to let this thing self-regulate…”

Last month about 30 residents of Nordheim chartered a bus and took the 150 mile trip to Austin to testify at a public hearing about the pits….Also at the hearing, Republican state representative Geanie Morrison - she said the state needs these facilities but….

“I am not naïve that we always be confronted with the ‘Not in my backyard” position. But this is truly in the backyard of the entire city of Nordheim.

But as Nordheim had its say, so did the company that is proposing the pits - Pyote Reclamation Systems. John Soule is their attorney. He stressed one particular point five times in the first two minutes of his presentation.

Soule2 BITE: The waste that will be received….. is RCRA or Resource Conservation and Recovery Act exempt oil and gas waste, by definition non-hazardous.”

Non - hazardous because of a decision made by Congress and the EPA back in 1988 to exempt oil and gas waste from federal regulations in a move to spur domestic oil production. .

SMITH “ it’s entirely a matter of politics.”

Ernest Smith literally wrote the book, - the text book - on Oil and Gas Law, he’s a specialist in the area and teaches it at the University of Texas law school.

SMITH “The oil and gas companies had sufficient pull that they were able to get it classified as non-hazardous.”

But Smith believes this exemption won’t last forever. He says pressure is building on the federal government to fix it. But that would come at quite a cost to industry -- at least a 6 fold increase in waste processing costs. That’s why its not likely to come in time to keep the pits out of Nordheim.

In San Antonio David Martin Davies reporting.

This story comes to us from Inside Energy, a public media collaboration focused on America’s energy issues.

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