Editorial: Illegal salt waste water disposal despicable
July 21, 2012 at 7:00 pm in The Dickinson Press
You can’t drink oil.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission is calling for aggressive enforcement against an oil and gas operator accused of putting salt water in a waste well, a move that threatens area drinking water. Continue Reading
The state standards are kind of “interesting”. They inject into the Dakota aquifer. While not great water quality, is was and continues to be used for livestock and some drinking water.
So the state standard is to inject into someone else’s water supply.
Then there is the very frequent occurrance of truckers who don’t want to wait and simply open the valve and dump the saltwater on the road. Well the state has spent lots on trying to figure out how to supress dust and what do they come up with? You use salt on the road to attract moisture.
So if done such that there isn’t runoff, does the trucker actually do any harm? Or is it just a matter of we will punish you because you aren’t doing what we want you to?
That of course doesn’t excuse this particular case of trying to inject down an improperly constructed well. The salt is very tough on casings and injecting down a single casing, it was just a matter of time until problems developed. It was fortunate one of the all too few inspectors caught it. Unfortunately, up in Bottineau county, the state is paying no attention to 50 year old pipelines and one went and there’s about 30 acres of land that isn’t going to grow anything for a long time. The landowner hasn’t even had a phone call from the company, no fine, no nothing.
The people in charge are leaving a legacy that will haunt North Dakota for a long time. They do it in the name of being pro business. I think the big accidents that will happen are negative for business. Reasonable regulation and inspections are the answer. The state needs to step up and actually start to do some serious monitoring and even rethink the regulations it does have. Some standards are pretty good, like the requirements on casings and such for drilling the Bakken so they stand up to the pressures. Other standards like go ahead and flare gas for at least a year, longer if you want, aren’t well thought out.
We are having trouble getting approved for power plants due to haze potential at Teddy Roosevelt. However, we have the equivalent of a power plant just flaring off without decent pollution control and the flames are much dirtier than they would be in a controlled power plant. I’m surprised that EPA hasn’t just shut the flaring right down at some point they probably will. Then the screaming will start. A more agressive tact now would forstall that happening.
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Western North dakota will be an industrial wasteland in 50 years if the people do not rise up and say enough is enough. I see an industrial wasteland if the citizens do not elect new leaders. They will get what they have courage to do. Senator Tim Mathern
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