energy policy, fossil fuels, fracking, Keystone XL, oil pollution, tar sands

Politico: Enviros target Keystone in new pipeline spill video

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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/enviros-target-keystone-in-new-pipeline-spill-video-95058.html
By: Matt Daily
August 1, 2013 02:10 PM EDT

An environmental group is rolling out a new tactic today to fight the Keystone XL pipeline: ananimated video showing every significant oil, gas and chemical pipeline spill in the U.S. since 1986.

The group, the Center for Biological Diversity, hopes the video will go viral and says it’s aimed at stirring up enough public awareness of the pipeline industry’s troubles to put pressure on three key Democratic senators – Bill Nelson of Florida, Michael Bennet of Colorado and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota – to oppose any pro-Keystone legislation. It’s also hoping to influence President Barack Obama’s final call on the pipeline’s future.

The video is part of a campaign aimed at spreading a simple message: Don’t trust the pipeline industry.

(WATCH: Obama says he’ll approve Keystone only if greenhouse gases won’t worsen)

Contrary to claims by the oil and gas industry, pipelines are not a safe way to ship energy, said Noah Greenwald, director of the Arizona-based group’s endangered species program. “For so many different reasons, we need to be moving away from fossil fuels,” Greenwald said. “There’s really no safe and clean way to deal with them.”

But the oil industry has said pipelines are far safer than other transportation systems, such as rail cars or trucks.

“Safety is the number one priority for the oil and natural gas industry. Pipelines are one of the safest ways to transport crude oil, gasoline, and other petroleum products, and spills are extremely rare,” said Carlton Carroll, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute. “Even one spill is too many, and our industry, working with regulators, continues to apply the highest standards and the latest technologies to ensure the safe delivery of the energy needed to fuel our economy.”

(PHOTOS: Climate skeptics in Congress)

The Center for Biological Diversity is perhaps best known for its aggressive tactics to enforce the Endangered Species Act, including the many lawsuits it has filed accusing agencies like the Interior Department and EPA of refusing to impose legally required protection for creatures like the polar bear, California condor and Mexican gray wolf.

Its animated spill map is based on data culled from nearly 8,000 incidents catalogued as “significant” by the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, including incidents that killed people, sent victims to the hospital, caused more than $50,000 in damages, released more than five barrels of volatile substances or triggered an explosion or fire. The spills featured in the video involved natural gas, oil and other hazardous liquids, such as diesel fuel, gasoline, fuel oil and anhydrous ammonia.

The group says the incidents have caused almost $7 billion in damage and killed more than 500 people since 1986.

“The numbers add up to 76,000 barrels per year, nearly 300 incidents per year,” Greenwald said.

The United States has more than 180,000 miles of oil and liquids pipelines and more than 305,000 miles of natural gas pipelines, according to industry data.

(WATCH: Obama’s full speech on climate change)

But the data also show that, at least in terms of the volume of the spills, the three lowest annual totals have occurred in the past five years, with the smallest volume in 2012. Greenwald acknowledged the downtrend in recent years, as well as the fact that a large percentage of the spills are very minor.

“A lot of the spills are small, but if it’s your land or the creek that you fish in Š it’s very damaging,” he said.

Environmentalists have pointed to the oil-sands crude that Keystone would carry as a particularly noxious type of oil that can be extremely difficult to clean up after a spill, particularly in water. That crude, which is mixed with light fluids to enable it to flow through pipelines, appears to sink in water, making it far more difficult to recover than crude oils that float on the surface.

That’s what happened when an Enbridge pipeline ruptured in July 2010, pouring more than 20,000 barrels of diluted oil-sands crude into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan. The clean-up there is still ongoing, with the costs to Enbridge likely to approach $1 billion.

Another rupture on a pipeline owned by ExxonMobil this March sent thousands of barrels of oil streaming through a neighborhood in Mayflower, Ark.

According to PHMSA data, nearly a quarter of the pipeline accidents were caused by excavation damage, while more than 18 percent were from corrosion. Another 17 percent of the incidents happen because of faulty materials or welding problems.

The Keystone fight has been raging for five years, but with an Obama administration decision on a needed permit expected before the end of the year, supporters and opponents are ramping up their rhetoric.

The Senate may also be nearing a crucial vote in September on a pro-Keystone amendment that Republicans would try to attach to widely popular energy efficiency legislation. That outcome may depend on the votes of a handful of Democrats, including Nelson, Klobuchar and Bennet.

Obama hasn’t yet tipped his hand on whether the Keystone pipeline, which would connect the oil sands fields in Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast, will win the permit. But his comments this week downplaying the number of jobs that the project will create gave opponents hope that he may turn it down.

In June, he warned that the pipeline shouldn’t be built if it would increase greenhouse gases, a statement that indicated the administration could be leaning on a State Department draft report that said the pipeline was a cleaner option than railroad cars or trucks to transport the oil.

© 2013 POLITICO LLC

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, fracking, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil, oil pollution, tar sands

Mint Press News: Revelation: Feds OK’d Offshore Drilling Without Full Environmental Review

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Revelation: Feds OK’d Offshore Drilling Without Full Environmental Review

By Trisha Marczak | July 31, 2013

surfers oil rig
Surfers enjoy the waves near a conventional offshore oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. These rigs could soon be joined by offshore fracking operations. In fact, in California, it turns out they already exist. (Photo/berardo62 via Flickr)

Environmental advocates are crying foul after the discovery that oil companies are using the controversial process known as fracking to extract oil off the coast of California, warning that the West Coast operations could become the norm from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico.

According to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the news organization Truthout, two fracking operations have been ongoing in the Santa Barbara Channel since 2009 without the environmental review normally required under federal regulations.

The same discovery was made by the Environmental Defense Center, which indicated that its research confirmed that Venoco Inc. conducted an offshore fracking operation in 2009. According to the center, no public disclosure was made before the fracking began.

“It’s completely illegal for the agency to approve fracking in the outer continental shelf without conducting a complete environmental impact statement,” Center for Biological Diversity Senior Counsel Kassie Siegel told Truthout.

The offshore fracking operations were approved by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement as a regular oil drilling operation.

According to documents obtained by Truthout, oil companies Venoco and Dcor LLC modified drilling permits already in place to pave the way for the fracking operations.
An email obtained by Truthout indicates the federal government knew the companies were fracking. In an email sent on behalf of the bureau’s chief of staff, Thomas Lillie, to a fellow employee, he posed the question: “Has there been an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement) to assess the environmental consequences of fracking on the OCS? How can we begin to review permit requests without that?”

That’s the question environmental organizations are asking, too.

“Venoco’s fracking operation was allowed under existing authorizations, and no further environmental analysis or public disclosure was made prior to the operation, despite the fact that offshore oil development raises its own host of environmental issues,” the Environmental Defense Center states on its website.

Those environmental issues, including groundwater contamination and propensity for spills, are still being debated as onshore fracking spreads in California and around the nation. There are also issues relating to the wells’ location near seismic faults.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management justified its endorsement of fracking operations using the argument that updated permits were approved after all new threats were assessed. But according to the Center for Biological Diversity, that doesn’t do the trick, either scientifically or technically.

Venoco, however, claims it does. Its website illustrates the company as one “concerned about the environment.”

“We operate in areas with extensive environmental regulations such as in and around the Santa Barbara Channel as well as in prime agricultural areas such as the Sacramento Basin,” the company’s site states.

California landlocked fracking questioned
California sits atop the Monterey shale formation, estimated to hold a potential 15 billion barrels of crude oil, representing the largest reserve in the nation.

In April, the federal Bureau of Land Management lost a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club over the issuing of leases to oil companies to drill in the Monterey shale. The Sierra Club successfully argued that leases were improperly given to the oil companies without the proper environmental reviews.

In all, roughly 17,000 acres of land in the Monterey shale formation was leased by the federal government to oil companies.

This is, essentially, the beef environmental organizations have with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

According to a bureau fact sheet obtained by Truthout, the agency has allowed fracking to occur 11 times in the last 25 years. However, a spokesperson for the bureau told Truthout the exact number of fracking operations is not known, as it would require combing through years of files.

The offshore fracking is similar to the process used on land to drum up oil locked in shale – a combination of water, chemicals and silica sand is shot into the earth to break up and extract hidden oil.

In the sea, it’s no different, although the process doesn’t require as much water or silica sand, otherwise known as frac sand. According to Truthout, offshore fracking uses 7 percent of the frac sand and 2 percent of the combined water and chemicals used in onshore fracking wells.

On land and sea
The offshore fracking discovery comes at a time when the safety of onshore fracking is being debated in the U.S. The Environmental Protection Agency has yet to release its study on the impact of fracking – recently announcing it would be delayed until 2016.
In the meantime, the effect on groundwater supplies is being monitored by people on both sides of the debate.

A study released by the University of Texas this month indicates water supplies surrounding fracking wells had elevated and toxic levels of arsenic, strontium and selenium, all associated with the fracking process.

The study assessed water samples taken from 100 private wells, 91 of which were within 3 miles of drilling sites.

The University of Texas study echoed one released this year by Duke University that found fracking operations were linked to groundwater contamination.

The study looked at roughly 140 water samples from Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale formation and discovered methane levels were 23 times more prevalent in homes less than a mile from a fracking well.

The University of Texas study comes after the National Energy Technology Laboratory, or NETL, released a report indicating groundwater supplies near a Pennsylvania fracking site did not show any signs of contamination. However, the report was only preliminary, and the laboratory intends to release its full report in 2014.

“NETL has been conducting a study to monitor for any signs of groundwater contamination as a result of hydraulic fracturing operations at a site on the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania,” NETL said in a statement following the preliminary report release. “We are still in the early stages of collecting, analyzing, and validating data from this site. While nothing of concern has been found thus far, the results are far too preliminary to make any firm claims. We expect a final report on the results by the end of the calendar year.”

On top of issues associated with groundwater contamination, fracking has raised questions associated with wastewater disposal and spills.

This month, Exxon Mobil was fined $100,000 for a fracking wastewater spill that contaminated the Susquehanna River in 2010. The EPA discovered water tested near the spill included elevated levels of chlorides, strontium and barium, chemicals also found in the company’s wastewater storage tanks.

Within three months, two major fracking fluid spills occurred at fracking well sites operated by Carrizo Oil and Gas. In May, a fracking well sent 9,000 gallons of fracking fluid onto nearby property in Pennsylvania. In March, a fracking well sent 227,000 gallons of fracking fluid into another Pennsylvania community.

These are the types of incidents environmental advocates are worried about, especially when there’s now a possibility such spills could occur in the ocean. While the offshore fracking process requires less fracking fluid, the possibility for detection and cleanup is in question, particularly when most people aren’t aware that offshore fracking is taking place.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, offshore oil, oil pollution

Huffington Post: Natural Gas Rig Blowout Highlights Dangers Of Drilling In The Gulf

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/26/natural-gas-rig-blowout_n_3660717.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

I’m concerned about the 27,000 old wells that have not been decommissioned and are prone to leak. They should be removed and the wellheads sealed. DV

Posted: 07/26/2013 4:36 pm EDT

From Mother Nature Network’s Russell McLendon:

Flames erupted from an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday night, torching a natural gas plume that had been leaking since a blowout earlier in the day. All 44 rig workers were evacuated before the fire began, according to the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, but the rig continued spewing gas until Thursday morning, when its scorched frame finally collapsed enough to cut off the leak.

In addition to the cloud of natural gas rising from the rig, the BSEE had observed a light sheen on the water’s surface measuring half a mile by 50 feet. The well’s owner, Walter Oil & Gas, was reportedly making preparations to drill a relief well before the rig “bridged over,” clogging the well with sand and sediment. The Associated Press reported Thursday afternoon that the fire is out, the rig appears stable and no sheen is visible.

Located 55 miles off the Louisiana coast, the well’s unmanned platform wasn’t producing gas when the blowout occurred. The 44 workers were on an adjacent, portable rig that was drilling a “sidetrack well” into the original well bore. It’s unclear what ignited the gas, the BSEE says, and a diagnosis will likely be delayed by response and cleanup efforts.

“BSEE’s efforts today are focused on bringing this loss of well control event to a safe resolution,” says Lars Herbst, BSEE Gulf of Mexico regional director, in a statement issued Tuesday. “Offshore oil and gas operators need to re-affirm their aggressive approach to the safety of well operations in light of this event and other recent well control events.”

The most salient such event in recent memory is the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people and released 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf. Officials say there’s little chance this week’s blowout will come anywhere close to matching that level of devastation, but it does cast a new spotlight on a long-running risk looming off the U.S. Gulf Coast. Earlier this month, for example, another inactive gas well ruptured off the Louisiana coast, leaking a small amount of gas and liquid before it was plugged.

The Gulf of Mexico is dotted with nearly 4,000 active oil and gas platforms (pictured above), plus a sprawling array of drilling rigs, supply ships and pipelines. This seafaring infrastructure is key to a bustling energy sector across the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana and Texas, but it also poses a grave danger to nearby people and wildlife.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. oil and gas extraction industry had a death rate of 27.1 per 100,000 workers between 2003 and 2010. That’s seven times higher than the 3.8 deaths per 100,000 workers across all U.S. industries. “The 11 lives lost in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion provide a reminder of the hazards involved in offshore drilling,” the CDC report stated.

Beyond the threat from active wells and drilling, the Gulf is also haunted by more than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, most of which undergo no monitoring for leaks. Some of the region’s oldest wells were abandoned in the 1940s, and many others are only considered “temporarily abandoned,” thus facing less strict sealing requirements.

These wells could be seeping oil, methane or other toxic substances for years, potentially sickening already-threatened wildlife like sea turtles or cetaceans. And as researchers have learned since 2010, large amounts of oil and gas can wreak havoc with microbial life and coral colonies, both of which are key to the Gulf’s food web – including its lucrative seafood industry. Although the Gulf is home to microbes that evolved to feed on natural oil and gas seeps, too much unnatural leaking and spilling can smother them.

“It’s important to keep in mind that if you keep pumping hydrocarbons into the system, you’ll eventually overwhelm it,” University of Georgia marine scientist Samantha Joye told MNN earlier this year, referring to the 2010 spill on its three-year anniversary.

Closer to shore, oil and gas development has already transformed many Gulf Coast wetlands, as manmade canals and other extraction-related projects have disrupted the flow of water and sediments that gradually build coastal bayous. The region has lost about 1,900 square miles of land in the past 80 years, and Louisiana alone is projected to lose another 1,750 square miles by 2060. Not only do these marshes house important wildlife, but they also serve as a protective buffer against hurricanes.

Recognizing this risk, Louisiana officials filed a lawsuit Wednesday against dozens of energy companies, seeking damages for decades of harm to coastal wetlands. Filed coincidentally as a leaking gas rig burned offshore, the suit cites “a mercilessly efficient, continuously expanding system of ecological destruction,” according to the New York Times, and hints at evolving attitudes in a region that has prospered from drilling but also suffered from lost tourism and seafood income after the Deepwater Horizon spill.

“Coastal economies, which depend on healthy oceans, simply cannot afford more offshore drilling disasters,” says Jacqueline Savitz, deputy vice president for the environmental group Oceana, in a statement released Wednesday about the latest gas blowout. “This is yet another reminder that offshore drilling remains dirty and dangerous.”

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated since it was first published on July 24, 2013.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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Discovery: Not Strong Enough: Oil Spill Disaster Preventers

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http://news.discovery.com/earth/oceans/oil-and-gas-disasters-continue-after-deepwater-horizon-130726.htm

JUL 26, 2013 08:45 AM ET // BY GAYATHRI VAIDYANATHAN

Flames engulfing a drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico decreased to a small fire yesterday, as officials worked around the clock to bring the well under control. The rig, called Hercules, is stationed 55 miles off the coast of Louisiana.

Crews were completing the well when they first lost control on Tuesday morning and natural gas started leaking out. The company, Walter Oil and Gas Corp., immediately evacuated all 44 workers on the rig. The methane ignited later that night.

World’s Most Dangerous Oceans Identified: Analysis

The incident is reminiscent of the Deepwater Horizon rig fire on on April 20, 2010, which exploded while drilling a well in the Gulf. Eleven men died in the explosion. The resulting oil spill, which continued for 87 days and spilled about 5 million barrels of crude, was the largest in the history of the United States.

There is a piece of equipment implicated in both the Hercules and Deepwater Horizon accidents: the blowout preventer or BOP. These are massive steel devices 25 feet tall, weighing a 100 tons that use sheer force to choke off a well.

The device is the last line of defense when workers lose control of an oil or gas well and fuel is spewing into the air. At that point, the BOP can be activated to seal off the well. It is critical equipment for all wells being drilled, and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) requires that companies maintain it very carefully.

When it is not maintained, loss of well control can lead to a blowout or an explosion.

Devastating Oil Spill Disasters: Photos

Companies lost control of their wells three times in the Gulf in 2011, four times in 2012, and five times this year, according to BSEE data. The BOPs were brought into action in some of the cases.

BSEE is in the process of updating its requirements for BOPs, and industry has been testing a number of new spill caps in recent years.

The increased attention to safety around the world following Deepwater Horizon has made the industry technically safer. But it still has not stopped offshore accidents, which are often caused by human error.

Oil Rig Runs Aground off Alaska Island: Analysis

Here’s a list of some of the latest:
July 23, 2013: Hercules rig blew out off Louisiana and 44 workers were evacuated. BSEE and Walter Oil and Gas Corp. are still bringing it under control.

July 12, 2013: a gas well located off Louisiana owned by Talos Energy LLC, began leaking. The spill was contained with minimal damage, but no one’s life was in danger.

Nov 16, 2012: a Black Elk Energy platform located off Louisiana exploded and caught on fire as workers were welding a pipe. Three men died.

March 26, 2012: the Elgin platform owned by Total SA in the North Sea off Scotland leaked natural gas for 52 days before it was brought under control.

Jan 16, 2012: A Chevron rig blew out off the coast of Nigeria, killing two men. The resulting fire burned for 46 days and the spill was the largest in the nation’s history.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management, offshore oil

Fuel Fix: Perry to lawmakers: Do more to advance offshore drilling

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http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/07/19/perry-to-lawmakers-do-more-to-advance-offshore-drilling/

Posted on July 19, 2013 at 3:08 pm by Jennifer A. Dlouhy

ric petty
Texas Gov. Rick Perry prepares for a presidential debate in October 2011. AP Photo/Scott Eells, Pool)

Congress can do more to advance offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean while boosting the economies of coastal states, eight governors said Friday.

Options rage from giving states a greater share of federal drilling royalties to passing legislation that would force the Interior Department to make more coastal tracts available for oil and gas development, the group of coastal governors said.

The governors, including Texas’ Rick Perry, made their pleas in a letter to their congressional delegations in the nation’s capital.

“During this congress, legislators will consider several matters that directly and indirectly affect the future of offshore energy development,” said the governors, who all represent coastal states. “As our federal representatives, we strongly urge you to act in concert to champion outer continental shelf energy and, by effect, the vitality of our coastal and state economies.”

The group – banded together as the OCS Governors Coalition – offered five recommendations.

At the top of their list: expanding an existing program for sharing offshore drilling revenue with states near the activity.

“Currently, the Atlantic coast states and Alaska are generally not eligible to share in revenues generated by oil, gas and renewable energy development in the outer continental shelf,” the group said. “These states should be treated equitably with all states.”

The governors may be preaching to the choir, since several of the recipients already have sponsored legislation that would open up the revenue-sharing program – which is set to begin for the Gulf Coast in 2017 – to all coastal states.

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is set next week to hold a hearing on one of those proposals, a measure by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Mary Landrieu, D-La., that would also move up the timeline for the Gulf revenue sharing program so it starts sooner. Their measure also would do away with a $500 million annual cap on what Gulf states can collect.

Under their bill, every state with ocean views would be able to participate and collect up to 37.5 percent of the royalties from any offshore energy production, whether it comes from oil and gas or wind and solar.

But the proposal is controversial – particular among offshore drilling foes, who believe the lure of revenue could encourage cash-strapped states to support oil and gas development in nearby waters.

In a March letter to Wyden and Murkowski, eight senators insisted they would “vigorously oppose any effort that expands or provides further incentive for offshore oil and gas drilling in areas where drilling is currently prohibited.”

The coastal governors also endorse plans to expand access to new outer continental shelf areas. The Obama administration’s five-year plan for selling offshore oil and gas leases through June 2017 contains a dozen auctions of territory in the Gulf of Mexico and three of tracts near Alaska.

But regulators at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management opted not to plan an auction of leases near Virginia, where a sale had previously been scheduled (and canceled after the 2010 Gulf spill). Some Alaskan areas and southern California acreage, near existing development, also were left out of the plan.

The coastal governors say the administration should have opened access to new frontiers and should finish its ongoing review of the environmental effects of seismic research along the Atlantic that could help pinpoint possible oil and gas reserves.

OCS governors letter – this is the version sent to Sen. Mary Landrieu (see attached file)
OCS-governors-letter-this-is-the-version-sent-to-Sen-Mary-Landrieu.pdf OCS-governors-letter-this-is-the-version-sent-to-Sen-Mary-Landrieu.pdf
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Special thanks to Richard Charter

"Be the change you want to see in the world." Mahatma Gandhi