Sinkhole, Day 2 ....

Um...  For those of you wondering, and I doubt that you are.. I'm now on day two of Sinkhole Patrol.  There is a gigantic sinkhole in the down of Daisetta.  It began opening up yesterday, and is now the size of six football fieds.  This town of 1,034 is not used to being besieged by media, EVER.  And yet, we have all the TV, radio, newspapers here.  Even the New York Times and World News Tonight sent people.  So what do we get?  Take a look at the photo I snapped.  It's a handwritten sign that says Command Post.  The little square in the corner says "No Media."  Yet, the guy standing in front is an ABC News audio man.  Go figure.

And in case you are wondering, one of our photographers coined this little phrase in the hot Texas Sun:

Monday:  Cinco de Mayo

Weds. & Thurs: Sinkhole de Miya

Sorry... long days!

Comments

[Lee]

This explains that "sinking feeling" I had during yesterday's city council meeting! Ha!!

[cynthia]

There is the practice of finding and exploiting abandoned or old wells where oil companies then dispose of ‘wastewater’. Texas has more than 50,000 permitted oil and gas injection and disposal wells. The definition of what the wastewater can contain is not easy to find. Simply dirty water it is not. (http://www.rrc.state.tx.us/faqs/saltwaterwells.html#many)

1. Injection Wells Can Fail and Contaminate.
2. Injection Wells Do Fail.

Montgomery County Texas is fighting to prevent Texcom (Lou Ross is their ceo) from injecting wastewater in east Montgomery County, near Creighton Road in the town of Conroe. If all goes well for Texcom they’ll be here in 4 months. So far things are going very well for Texcom. Even though several factors that should prevent injection from taking place in Conroe have been documented.
From Texcom’s own website:

“Opportunities for Margin Expansion – With the anticipated addition of 12,000 barrels per day of new disposal capacity for the existing Class I well in Conroe, TX, TGD will soon have the operational capability to take advantage of higher margin non-hazardous industrial waste business. TGD will also have 3 additional well permits to be used in the event that the existing well capacity declines or experiences operating limitations.”

Maybe we’re just not listening: TGD (Texcom Gulf Disposal) has in reserve three additional well permits “in the event that the existing well capacity declines or experiences operating limitations” Again maybe we’re just not listening. What are operating limitations? Is this a loophole or anticipation that in fact there may be a failure of the wells designated to contain this waste?

Injection wells can fail and contaminate.
The Texas Center for policy studies states (http://www.texascenter.org/almanac/Waste/INDUSTRIALCH9P5.HTML):
“Experts and local state officials agree that waste disposal through properly constructed and operated injection wells is safer and less likely to contaminate surface water or potable groundwater than are landfills and other forms of land treatment. For example, injection of hazardous waste into aquifers that serve or could serve as groundwater supplies for communities is not allowed. However, there are several pathways by which waste injected underground could contaminate water resources:
• Injection of waste above aquifers containing drinkable water (this is the case in Montgomery County Texas see wastewater injection wells do fail, below)
• Leakage of waste through inadequate confining beds
• Leakage of waste through confining beds due to hydraulic fracture or faults
• Displacement of saline water into a potable aquifer
• Upward migration of waste liquid from the injection zone along the outside of well casing
• Escape into potable aquifers due to well-bore failures
• Vertical migration and leakage to land and aquifers through abandoned oil, gas and other wells
Because the areas in which deep well injection of hazardous waste is practiced in Texas are precisely those areas with a long history of oil and gas production, there are many possible routes for vertical migration of hazardous waste to the surface. State and federal regulations require those seeking to inject industrial and hazardous waste to survey existing wells within their injection area. Still, the possibility exists that old oil and gas wells may not be located or were not adequately plugged, or that migration could occur outside of the injection zone.”

Interestingly in the news these last few days is Daisetta Texas where a massive sinkhole is coincidentally near a wastewater injection well.

Daisetta, TX Health Index as of 2007
http://www.bestplaces.net/city/Daisetta-Texas.aspx
• Air quality in Daisetta, TX is 45 on a scale to 100 (higher is better). This is based on ozone alert days and number of pollutants in the air, as reported by the EPA.
• Water quality in Daisetta, TX is 53 on a scale to 100 (higher is better). The EPA has a complex method of measuring watershed quality using 15 indicators.
• Superfund index is 20 on a scale to 100 (higher is better). This is based upon the number and impact of EPA Superfund pollution sites in the county, including spending on the cleanup efforts.

As you may have heard: the mayor of Daisetta commented that the workers who will be losing jobs because of the sinkhole, deliver and inject oil company waste 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Very subtly in one article (http://www.knbc.com/automotive/16192872/detail.html) about the massive sinkhole in Daisetta is a single line:
“Oil gathered at the bottom of the sinkhole. The property was described as a disposal well.”
While the article contradicts itself and states that the sinkhole hasn’t affected the injection well. The stench of sludge and sulfur are reported too. Has anyone considered that the injection well caused the sinkhole?

Wastewater injection wells do fail:
From the grass roots organization Stop The Toxic Wells website:
http://www.stopthetoxicwells.com/facts.htm

“The property bought in Montgomery County by TexCom is in the middle of the 
old Conroe Oil Field, which had some of the largest 
drilling activity back in the 30’s and 40’s as any other 
location in Texas. Some problems with this site include:
• Directly below the proposed drilling site in 
Montgomery County lie 3 major aquifers that 
provide drinking water for all or part of 54 counties 
in South Texas. These are the Chicot, Evangeline, 
and Jasper aquifers. Toxic chemicals will be 
injected under high pressure into cavities below 
these precious freshwater sources. View Aquifer Map. (http://www.stopthetoxicwells.com/documents/TexasWaterAquifer.pdf)
• Hundreds of abandoned wells in this area remain 
undocumented with the Texas Railroad 
Commission. The structural integrity and location 
of these residual pipelines can not be known for 
sure.
• Retired Oil & Gas employees have submitted 
depositions that some of these wells were known 
to have been improperly capped at the time they 
were abandoned.
• This property is known to contain significant 
fissures, which can provide access points for toxic 
leaks to seep into our freshwater supplies.”

Links:
An Injection Well Up Close and Personal
Fort Worth wastewater site:
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2007/10/injection-well-up-close-and-personal.html

Injection Well Failure info and New Permits
http://www.texaskaos.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=3009