Texas pollution increases, but dirty air not the biggest culprit

[CShine]

Texas pollution increased in 2002 for only the second time in more than a decade, figures released this week by the Environmental Protection Agency show. But this time, the usual suspect -- air pollution -- wasn't behind the uptick. Toxic air pollution statewide decreased by 5.5 percent from 2001 to 2002, while pollution entering state waterways, and waste deposited on land and injected underground, rose by as much as 18.7 percent, according to the federal data.

The trend had some questioning whether the state has been too focused on its air pollution problem and its many refineries and petrochemical plants. The Houston area, along with Dallas and Beaumont-Port Arthur, has not complied with federal standards for ground-level ozone for more than a decade.

"The state clean air plans are obviously focused on ... manufacturing industries in large metropolitan areas," said Cyrus Reed of the Texas Center for Policy Studies, the publisher of the Texas Environmental Almanac. "Those industries have been the focus of regulation. The operations that lead to water pollution, for example, we have regulated much less."

<snip>

In Texas, the 0.7 percent increase seen in 2002 was the second rise in pollution since the government launched the inventory in 1988. The first increase came in 1995. The state remained fourth in the country for total toxic releases into the environment. And Brazoria County, which usurped Harris County as the most polluted in the state in 2001, kept its title.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/2646051

[TX-RAT]

1. Got a question

( and injected underground,)
Exactly what are they talking about?
What is being injected?

[mbperrin]

2. Here's a bit of info:

http://www.texasep.org/html/wst/wst_4imn.html
<from the article>....
Between 1986 and 1999, Texans and their Texas-based industries produced at least 60 million tons of hazardous waste every year, significantly more than any other state.

<snip>
There are some 158,000 underground and 21,000 above-ground storage tanks registered with the TCEQ, and between 1989 and 2002, TCEQ has documented approximately 12,010 groundwater contamination incidents

<snip>
Industrial solid waste can be managed either on site—at the facility where it is generated—or transported off site to commercial facilities. Whether on-site or off-site, industrial solid waste can be disposed of through the use of municipal and industrial wastewater facilities; land disposal facilities such as landfills, waste pits—principally for petroleum exploration waste—and deep underground injection wells

<snip>
There's a good bit more here
Happy reading!

[TX-RAT]

3. As far as injection wells

They are injecting the salt water that comes from normal operation, back into the same zones that it was recovered. Seems a little unfair.

[mbperrin]

4. Perhaps you have no experience with the oil industry.

There is no salt water to recover under Texas except that which was pumped in as a cheap drilling fluid without regard for whether it would contaminate the drinking water or not. Now it is true that vast amounts of formerly fresh water are now saltier than the Atlantic Ocean, and it is true that they keep repumping and reinjecting the salt water as a cheap drilling fluid, and that many areas can no longer pump fresh water for their own use.

There's nothing fair about Shell Oil injecting a well a half mile from your house after you've lived there for 23 years and ruining the drinking water for thousands, forcing them to spend millions of dollars to import fresh water from the nearest big city at a 50% premium. Not fair, but that's what happened.

Doesn't even count the disposal well used for insecticides and God knows what that the company tried to get repairs done on without environmental gear.

And more.......

[TX-RAT]

5. There is no salt water to recover under Texas

("Perhaps you have no experience with the oil industry)
We've been pumping salt water out of the ground here in Texas since oil was discovered.

(Doesn't even count the disposal well used for insecticides)
Please provide a link for that one
As far as i know no such wells exist.

Exactly where do think all that salt water came from.

[mbperrin]

6. There is no natural salt water under Texas. We put it there.

We use it because it is cheaper than other drilling fluids. Here's a sales link:
http://www.bakerhughes.com/inteq/fluids/completion_fluids/wellbore_displacement.htm

Here's the state procedure for getting one type of injection/disposal well:
http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/divisions/og/uic/manual/HTML/pmt-outl.htm

Be back with more soon.

I worked in the industry for 7 years and have lived all my life in the largest oil field in the world. How bout you?

[TX-RAT]

9. Been around the industry for over 40yrs

I've got 16 wells on my ranch.
Answer my question where do you think the salt water came from.
Your links say nothing to the question i asked.
Ever hear of salt domes, well we've got plenty.
I live right in the middle of the Permian Basin.

(have lived all my life in the largest oil field in the world)
So how was Saudi Arabia?

Those 16 wells produce close to 2200 barrels of salt water a day. Interestingly enough there was no salt water used in the drilling of these wells, only fresh water and drilling mud.

[mbperrin]

11. I've answered as many ways as I know how. You don't read.

Here's one last attempt to get you to realize that these fluids were placed there and your wells are connected to the other 100,000 in the Permian Basin as well as all the other water and fluids.
http://articles.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3159/is_n6_v219/ai_20872429

We put the salt in there. My grandparents came to Odessa in 1922 and we're going nowhere. This is the largest oil field in the world and the highest level of knowledge available on the subject. You ought to think about getting some.

At least read the Railroad Commission links on how many disposal wells are operating in the state.

I've done what I can.

[TX-RAT]

14. If you believe there was no natural salt under the Permian basin

Might you explain all the salt lakes in the Permian basin, did we create those too.
My friend might i remind you that the entire Permian basin was under the ocean at one time.
The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum is one town east of you. Take a walk through and contact me later.
It was the sediment of the ocean that created the oil.

[TX-RAT]

16. Might I also add.

If you truly believe there is no natural salt water below the Permian Basin, then this conversation is over. You have no concept of The creation of oil, the drilling of oil, or the recovery of oil.
But have a nice day.

[mbperrin]

13. Is around worked in?

nt

[mbperrin]

7. Here's another kind of disposal well for vile chemicals:

http://www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6sf/pdffiles/malonesr.pdf

[TX-RAT]

10. Thats storm water injection

Not pesticides as you stated.

[mbperrin]

12. Read it again: the stormwater pond is supposed to protect what

is there - all sorts of acide and etc. Look again:http://www.epa.gov/earth1r6/6sf/pdffiles/malonesr.pdf

Read what is disposed of there, not the method they thought would contain it, but didn't.

Thanks.

[TX-RAT]

15. My only question was on injection wells

The 2 wells they spoke of were for storm water. It was either that or Galveston Bay.

[mbperrin]

8. And here's the too-common result of this type of mess.

Taxpayers clean it up (as best they can):
http://www.tnrcc.state.tx.us/permitting/remed/superfund/malonea.html