Utah Oil Sands Project Challenged Over Groundwater Pollution

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — State regulators testified Wednesday that the first U.S. commercial oil sands operation won't pollute groundwater because the proposed strip mine is in an arid region of eastern Utah with no groundwater except at extreme depths.

That conclusion by regulators came under attack by the Moab-based environmental group Living Rivers, which is disputing Utah's approval for a water pollution permit in a trial-like hearing being conducted by an administrative law judge.

Regulators said the project site is isolated from nearby springs and seeps, and that test drills hit no groundwater until a depth of 1,800 feet under a pit that U.S. Oil Sands Inc. plans to dig this summer.

"It would take thousands of years for any water to travel through an unsaturated zone that thick, and even longer for contaminates to travel" the distance, said Robert Herbert, manager of groundwater protection for the Utah Division of Water Quality.

The hearing has drawn the attention of the oil industry, which is launching pilot projects to extract petroleum from tar sands and oil shale across parts of Utah and Colorado. Wednesday's testimony showed regulators were uncertain how to assess the potential environmental damage of extracting new and unconventional forms of petroleum.

Utah regulators said they quickly concluded U.S. Oil Sands couldn't possibly pollute any groundwater in a desert, and they offered the company a pro forma discharge permit without an independent or rigorous analysis.

"There's no evidence for any extensive quantities of groundwater," testified Mark Novak, an environmental scientist for the Division of Water Quality.

Living Rivers argues tar sands mining will leave behind solvents and petrochemicals in unlined waste pits and that snowmelt and rain will wash the toxins into the ground and spread pollution.

U.S. Oil Sands says a citrus-based solvent will leave the oil-soaked sands as clean as beach sand. The company said Wednesday any seeps in the area are just "damp spots" that quickly evaporate after rainfall.

U.S. Oil Sands plans to start digging a pit this summer in an area that contains gooey bitumen, a tar-like form of petroleum. Executives say they will produce 2,000 barrels of oil a day by next year, in the start of what could grow into a much larger operation. The company is raising money for the project from a special stock sale.

The Utah project is the "first commercial oil sands extraction project in the U.S.," said Cameron Todd, CEO of the Calgary, Alberta-based company. Todd said Utah's oil sands are sweeter or lighter with less polluting sulfur than in Alberta's vastly larger deposits.

Utah has an estimated 12 billion to 19 billion barrels of oil buried in its tar sands, though not all of that is considered accessible.

The state regulators appeared to struggle Wednesday in defending their position that no significant amount of groundwater ever visits the 62-acre site called PR Springs.

Herbert was often inconsistent under intense questioning, and he was admonished several times by the administrative judge for failing to give simple answers. Herbert initially claimed Utah has to protect only "useable" quantities of groundwater. But he later acknowledged state law protects any amount of surface or subsurface water.

The regulators said drilling logs by U.S. Oil Sands showed no evidence of groundwater, but under questioning they acknowledged the logs made no mention of the presence or absence of groundwater.

The company says it drilled 108 holes up to 305 feet deep without finding water, twice the depth of the proposed strip mine. The company also drilled deeper for a well but says it hit dry holes four times, with a fifth drill hole finally hitting water 1,800 feet underground.

The hearing continues Thursday and is being broadcast at http://www.deq.utah.gov/Online_Services/deqwebcasts.htm .

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Comments

[Linus521]

01:29 AM on 05/21/2012

I hope this photo is a real picture of the ecological devastation. Just look at this picture; this is your Earth, your home, bulldozed into obliteration, a planet as dead as Mars. Gone, are all and everything that separates a living Earth from a dead planet, a barren earth, no trees, no plants, no rivers, no butterflies, no birds, no frogs, no lizards, no bats, no wolves, as lifeless as the surface of Mars.

At what point, do we say enough is enough because, we need the real Earth because Earth is every and all reasons man breathes.

[iccheap]

09:10 PM on 05/20/2012

Okay, presuming the water contamination is a non-issue, what about aerial transport of the noxious material that gets exposed. I am assuming the material contains quite a bit of heavy metals and associated material that those down wind would prefer not to receive. Ah, one loves a tragedy of the commons in the making. It almost seems like we've been down this road.........

[Genders]

09:45 PM on 05/19/2012

How many weasel words can you spot in this statement: "There's no evidence for any extensive quantities of groundwater,"

[FaceReality2]

09:23 PM on 05/19/2012

There are oil sands prospects in Colorado too. Sad.

[earthotter]

02:10 PM on 05/18/2012

"It would take thousands of years for any water to travel through an unsaturated zone that thick, and even longer for contaminates to travel"

That's good. All our offspring will be extinct by then so why worry about that?

[Cacey]

11:47 AM on 05/18/2012

As a native of the Far West, I mourn the loss of so much of the West's great beauty which often was found in the remote sparsly populated areas that this project is focusinf on. America's great open spaces free from development and destruction are part of our heritage and part of our essance and we are foolishly letting it disappear.

[aligatorhardt]

08:22 AM on 05/18/2012

This strip mining totally destroys the area mined. One look at the picture reveals that.

[iccheap]

09:07 PM on 05/20/2012

Bingo - if you can feel good about that picture you lack any connection to your ecological heritage.

[sstorms]

10:36 PM on 05/20/2012

My exact thoughts when I first saw the picture, my friend.

[Kenneth Alton]

07:56 PM on 05/17/2012

Interesting. Traditionally the LDS, perhaps because unfortunate experiences back in the pioneer day, has been very protective of water resources in the state of Utah (when they understood a threat existed). For the state to issue a permit the Elders must have either been asleep when the issue came up, or did not feel there was a threat.

[OutAtFirst]

10:20 AM on 05/18/2012

You misunderstand the prevailing attitude in Utah. Extractive industry is revered and money trumps all other considerations.

[Kenneth Alton]

03:42 PM on 05/18/2012

Ahhh - I can understand a change in attitude towards water security in the general populace, but what an interesting... evolution... in the LDS.

[olitenup]

05:25 PM on 05/17/2012

Human beings are the stupidest species on this earth. I am not aware of any other specie knowingly poisons its fresh water and air, and put toxins on its own food supply.

[Michael D Ballantine]

04:25 PM on 05/17/2012

So it begins. We need to find environmentally friendly ways to extract this because whether we like or not, the oil must flow.

[Kenneth Alton]

08:01 PM on 05/17/2012

Ahhhhhh... Yesssssss: The spice must flow!

LOL

[Michael D Ballantine]

08:21 PM on 05/17/2012

Great analogy. The one thing I realize is that the oil companies will bribe their way to getting what they want, best to find the least damaging path.

[angusmciver]

10:26 PM on 05/17/2012

Wow, I've been keeping an interested eye on you, at this point in our relationship I can't believe the Green Party candidate just said that. See you next time around, good bye. Better shoot for 2020.

[Michael D Ballantine]

09:59 AM on 05/18/2012

I am just being pragmatic.  History has shown that it is better to be on the inside making the decisions than on the outside watching the enemy roll over you. The oil industry has Congress in its pocket and despite our angst and hardwork, the oil will continue to flow as long as they can make money.  I propose nationalizing our oil industry so we can focus on extracting it in an environmentally friendly way, eliminate tax incentives and use the profits to reduce our national debt.  When renewables have come on stream, we can shut it down.  Does that better suit your world view?

[Scott Howes]

04:06 PM on 05/17/2012

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There is, Site Rules and Hazard Reporting, to Methods of how to work with the Rules & Standards in the industry. To understand more you need calluses and fearless desire to be safe, with education and training. I have Training for knowledge this will give you access to the skilled labor workforce. www.isoclasses.com is a Certification Provider to empower the workforce for the Sledge Hammer and Anvil to Emergence and technology industry with 940 Classes. We need oversite to take care of Clean Water Clean Air also we have technology for this type of production.

[Y2KCockroach]

01:58 PM on 05/17/2012

"U.S. Oil Sands says a citrus-based solvent will leave the oil-soaked sands as clean as beach sand".
________________________________________________________

Good, then this Canadian-based company doesn't need to leave the residue in Utah; they can truck it to the seawall beside Stanley Park in Vancouver. I'm sure that the locals there would love to have some more pristine, clean, beach sand to play with...

[aligatorhardt]

08:26 AM on 05/18/2012

The surface is washed with detergent then the oily water soaks in deeper. How is that "clean"? The top looks clean, that is whitewashing over hazardous waste. The entire surface of the land is stripped away.

[Genders]

09:51 PM on 05/19/2012

That's his point. It's not clean. Let the truck they dirty up to Canada....

[Moose Luck 99]

12:45 PM on 05/17/2012

BYRON CHRISTOPHER

HYTHE, ALTA.—Eco-warrior Wiebo Ludwig is fighting his final battle. It’s a question of when, not if. Diagnosed last year with cancer of the esophagus, Ludwig, 70, is in palliative care and preparing for death.

Ludwig was rushed to hospital in nearby Grande Prairie last Monday after food became lodged in his throat. Doctors enlarged the stent they first inserted in his esophagus in late January.

The patriarch of a Christian clan returned to the compound of his roughly 60 followers and family near here at Trickle Creek Farm, the 324-hectare parcel of nearly self-sufficient land in northwest Alberta’s Peace River country. The Dutch-born enemy of the oil industry — eco-terrorist, his many foes would label him — has lost 30 pounds in the past month alone.

“It doesn’t bother me,” Ludwig said of his impending death, during a Trickle Creek interview last week. “I’m quite grateful about my life, in many ways a concentrated series of battles. I enjoyed the battles. They were difficult times, but meaningful. I was seldom bored, put it that way.”

Boring is definitely not a word to associate with Wiebo Ludwig.

For those who espouse green living and turning our collective backs on uncontrolled oil and gas drilling and development, For decades he has stood as an outspoken, implacable, media-savvy foe of oil and gas industry, as evidenced by Toronto filmmaker David York’s 2011 National Film Board-backed documentary, Wiebo’s War.

http://radicalpress.com/

[Y2KCockroach]

02:06 PM on 05/17/2012

Ludwig was a pariah in his own community. Many of his neighbours despised him, and fully half of his church congregation disliked him. He was a convicted terrorist (jailed for bombing a Suncor well), and he was suspected of many more pipeline bombings over the years. He was also the prime suspect in the shooting death of a 16 year old girl who made the simple mistake of entering his property in a pickup truck.

He thrived on conflict, and he alienated most everybody who ever had anything to do with him.

Oh, and he dropped dead last month. Bye bye Wiebo, nobody is going to miss you...