After the floods in Colorado, a deluge of worry about leaking oil

Jack Healy in the New York Times: When floodwaters surged into Colorado’s drilling center, they swamped wells, broke pipes and swept huge oil tanks off their foundations. The state has counted a dozen “notable” spills stemming from the catastrophic floods this month.

 Now, as the waters drain east and regulators move to assess the environmental toll, the sight of drowning oil wells has inflamed the emotional debate over the West’s new resource rush. It is a familiar argument here in a state where oil wells dot farmers’ fields and ragged peaks still bear the scars of century-old gold and silver mines.

 There are about 20,000 oil and gas wells across Weld County, and about 1,900 of them had to be closed off — “shut in” in industry parlance — as the floodwaters coursed down from the mountains and spread out across the plains, inundating entire communities.

 Images of toppled oil tanks and dark sheens on the water created impressions of an environmental calamity, but state officials say the damage appears to be limited. About 37,380 gallons have spilled so far — an amount, energy officials point out, that would fill up about five percent of an Olympic-size swimming pool...

Sandbags for the Colorado flood, with the Colorado National Guard helping. Photo by Air National Guard Staff Sgt. Nicole Manzanares, public domain

Gas flaring and household stoves speed Arctic thaw

A press release from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis: Gas flaring by the oil industry and smoke from residential burning contributes more black carbon pollution to Arctic than previously thought—potentially speeding the melting of Arctic sea ice and contributing to the fast rate of warming in the region.

The new study, published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics by researchers at IIASA and in Norway, Finland, and Russia, finds that gas flaring from oil extraction in the Arctic accounts for 42% of the black carbon concentrations in the Arctic, with even higher levels during certain times of the year. In the month of March for example, the study showed that flaring accounts for more than half of black carbon concentrations near the surface. Globally, in contrast, gas flaring accounts for only 3% of black carbon emissions.

The researchers also found that residential combustion emissions play a greater role in black carbon pollution than previously estimated, after they incorporated seasonal differences in emissions into the model.

To conduct the study, researchers used particle dispersion model FLEXPART driven by emissions estimated with the IIASA’s GAINS model, combined with measurements of black carbon in the Arctic, made during a research cruise in the Arctic Ocean and research stations located at 6 sites in Alaska, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Greenland.

...“We are seeing more and more oil being extracted further and further north. And the proximity of emissions from gas flaring matters,” says Klimont. Black carbon, or soot, contributes to warming in the Arctic by darkening the surface of snow or ice and causing it to melt faster, or absorbing more heat in the air...

This map shows the surface concentrations of black carbon, from all emission sources, as simulated by the new study. The study shows that residential combustion emissions and gas flaring emissions are higher than previous studies had estimated. Map from the IIASA website

Sinking cities in Indonesia caused by groundwater and gas extraction

Rosenstiel School of Marine &Atmospheric Sciences News: Jakarta and several other major Indonesia cities are sinking at alarming rates of up to 22 cm per year, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. This rapid land subsidence of major cities, due to extraction of groundwater for industrial use, is likely to put the densely populated coastal regions below sea level in less than two decades.

"Our study shows that some parts of Jakarta, and elsewhere in Indonesia, will be below sea level in less than 20 years if they don't stop pumping groundwater," said Rosenstiel School Professor Falk Amelung, a co-author of the study.

...The researchers attributed this rapid land subsidence to groundwater extraction in four major urban areas, including in the capital and largest city of Jakarta (population: 9.5 million), Bandung (population: 2.4 million), Pekalongan (population: 200,000), and Semarang (population: 1.5 million). Indonesia's municipal water supply serves only 25% of its more than 240 million people therefore the majority of the population and industries rely heavily on groundwater extraction for water. Land subsidence from gas field exploitation was also shown to occur near the Indonesian cities of Lhokseumawe and in the Sidoarjo regency.

Unlike Venice, which is sinking at a rate of 2 to 3 millimeters per year, heavily developed regions of Indonesia, including in Jakarta and five other major cities are sinking at rates of tens of centimeters per year.

..."Since these cities are close to sea level and because the subsidence is extremely rapid, the societal impacts could be huge, both in terms of water resources and sinking of the land relative to the ocean," said Chaussard. "Understanding of the processes involved and continuing the monitoring are thus critical for mitigation purposes."....

An aerial view of north Jakarta, shot by Amelia Guo, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license

Potential well water contamination highest near natural gas drilling

University of Texas at Arlington News Center: A new study of 100 private water wells in and near the Barnett Shale showed elevated levels of potential contaminants such as arsenic and selenium closest to natural gas extraction sites, according to a team of researchers that was led by UT Arlington associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry Kevin Schug.

Brian Fontenot, who earned his Ph.D. in quantitative biology from UT Arlington, worked with Kevin Schug, UT Arlington associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and a team of researchers to analyze samples from 100 private water wells.

The results of the North Texas well study were published online by the journal Environmental Science & Technology Thursday. The peer-reviewed paper focuses on the presence of metals such as arsenic, barium, selenium and strontium in water samples. Many of these heavy metals occur naturally at low levels in groundwater, but disturbances from natural gas extraction activities could cause them to occur at elevated levels.

“This study alone can’t conclusively identify the exact causes of elevated levels of contaminants in areas near natural gas drilling, but it does provide a powerful argument for continued research,” said Brian Fontenot, a UT Arlington graduate with a doctorate in quantitative biology and lead author on the new paper.

He added: “We expect this to be the first of multiple projects that will ultimately help the scientific community, the natural gas industry, and most importantly, the public, understand the effects of natural gas drilling on water quality.”...

A far view of a fracking operation undetaken by Halliburton, shot by Joshua Doubek, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license