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A dozen fires and explosions at Colorado oil and gas facilities in 8 months since fatal blast in Firestone
New pipeline rules proposed but they don’t deal with fatalities from oil and gas industry fires and explosions.
By BRUCE FINLEY | bfinley@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: December 6, 2017 at 7:51 pm | UPDATED: December 19, 2017 at 3:26 pm
At least a dozen explosions and fires have occurred along Colorado oil and gas industry pipelines in the eight months since two men were killed when a home blew up in Firestone, a Denver Post review of state records found. Two of those explosions killed workers.
The state has not taken any enforcement action in the April 17 Firestone deaths, saying there is no rule — and none is proposed — covering oil and gas industry accidents that lead to fatalities.
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Fracking Colorado: Impact on environment and people
PART 1
By Viviana Weinstein posted on June 25, 2017
More and more towns all over Colorado are being affected by the negative impacts of fracking, including explosions, noise, dust, water contamination, injuries and deaths. The magnitude of the industrial drilling sites and the miles of horizontal underground pipelines that are unknown to builders and the population of growing towns are causing increasing safety problems.
“For years we have known that leaking underground pipes carrying oil and gas and processing waste regularly contaminate soil and water and potentially threaten thousands of people around the state, records show, “ wrote the Denver Post on May 17.
The process of fracking — hydraulic fracturing — involves drilling deep wells and injecting into them a mix of chemicals, sand and millions of gallons of water per well at high pressure. This splits the rock along fissures, allowing oil and gas to be released.
Fracking to obtain gas was introduced in Colorado in 1973, replacing earlier methods of extraction. By the early 1990s, such drilling was massive as companies became able to drill vertically and horizontally. Today it is possible to drill vertically as deep as five miles and then horizontally for five more miles. Colorado wells are usually two miles deep and two miles wide.
In a state concerned about having enough clean water for agriculture and for people to drink and use, the amount of water used in fracking is astounding. It requires 6 to 8 million gallons to frack one well. Each well can be fracked up to 18 times.
There are now 53,000 active and 36,500 inactive wells in Colorado and thousands of miles of pipeline. Many of these pipes are encased in cement, which crumbles over time. It wasn’t until 2016 that the state began monitoring underground pipes connected to wells, tanks and other equipment.
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Impacts of Fracking
Air Pollution
Natural Gas Flare
Natural gas flares from a flare-head at the Orvis State well on the Evanson family farm in McKenzie County, North Dakota, east of Arnegard and west of Watford City.[creative commons]
Methane is a main component of natural gas and is 25 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitoring gas wells in Weld County, Colorado, estimated that 4 percent of the methane produced by these wells is escaping into the atmosphere. NOAA scientists found the Weld County gas wells to be equal to the carbon emissions of 1-3 million cars.
A number of other air contaminants are released through the various drilling procedures, including construction and operation of the well site, transport of the materials and equipment, and disposal of the waste. Some of the pollutants released by drilling include: benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl benzene (BTEX), particulate matter and dust, ground level ozone, or smog, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and metals contained in diesel fuel combustion---with exposure to these pollutants known to cause short-term illness, cancer, organ damage, nervous system disorders and birth defects or even death .
The Associated press recently reported that Wyoming's air quality near rural drilling sites is worse than Los Angeles'--with Wyoming ozone levels recorded at 124 parts per billion compared to the worst air day of the year for Los Angeles, at 114 parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency's maximum healthy limit is 75 parts per billion.
Jonah Oil Fields
Oblique low-altitude aerial photo of wellpads, access roads, pipeline corridors and other natural-gas infrastructure in the Jonah Field of western Wyoming's upper Green River valley[creative commons]
A 2007 report prepared for the Western Governor's Association, that inventoried present and future nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from oil and gas drilling in the west, projects Montana to experience a 310% increase in nitrogen oxide pollution (smog).
Crystalline silica, in the form of sand, can cause silicosis (an incurable but preventable lung disease) when inhaled by workers. Sand is a main ingredient used in the fracking process. The National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH) collected air samples from 11 fracking sites around the country. All 11 sites exceeded relevant occupational health criteria for exposure to respirable crystalline silica. In 31% of the samples, silica concentrations exceeded the NIOSH exposure limit by a factor of 10, which means that even if workers were wearing proper respiratory equipment, they would not be adequately protected.
Impacts of Fracking - Air Pollution
Natural Gas Flare
Natural gas flares from a flare-head at the Orvis State well on the Evanson family farm in McKenzie County, North Dakota, east of Arnegard and west of Watford City.[creative commons]
Methane is a main component of natural gas and is 25 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) monitoring gas wells in Weld County, Colorado, estimated that 4 percent of the methane produced by these wells is escaping into the atmosphere. NOAA scientists found the Weld County gas wells to be equal to the carbon emissions of 1-3 million cars.
A number of other air contaminants are released through the various drilling procedures, including construction and operation of the well site, transport of the materials and equipment, and disposal of the waste. Some of the pollutants released by drilling include: benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl benzene (BTEX), particulate matter and dust, ground level ozone, or smog, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and metals contained in diesel fuel combustion---with exposure to these pollutants known to cause short-term illness, cancer, organ damage, nervous system disorders and birth defects or even death .
The Associated press recently reported that Wyoming's air quality near rural drilling sites is worse than Los Angeles'--with Wyoming ozone levels recorded at 124 parts per billion compared to the worst air day of the year for Los Angeles, at 114 parts per billion. The Environmental Protection Agency's maximum healthy limit is 75 parts per billion.
Jonah Oil Fields
Oblique low-altitude aerial photo of wellpads, access roads, pipeline corridors and other natural-gas infrastructure in the Jonah Field of western Wyoming's upper Green River valley[creative commons]
A 2007 report prepared for the Western Governor's Association, that inventoried present and future nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions from oil and gas drilling in the west, projects Montana to experience a 310% increase in nitrogen oxide pollution (smog).
Crystalline silica, in the form of sand, can cause silicosis (an incurable but preventable lung disease) when inhaled by workers. Sand is a main ingredient used in the fracking process. The National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH) collected air samples from 11 fracking sites around the country. All 11 sites exceeded relevant occupational health criteria for exposure to respirable crystalline silica. In 31% of the samples, silica concentrations exceeded the NIOSH exposure limit by a factor of 10, which means that even if workers were wearing proper respiratory equipment, they would not be adequately protected.
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Health Effects of Fracking:
A 2011 article in the journal, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, examined the potential health impacts of oil and gas drilling in relation to the chemicals used during drilling, fracking, processing,and delivery of natural gas. The paper compiled a list of 632 chemicals (an incomplete list due to trade secrecy exemptions) identified from drilling operations throughout the U.S. Their research found that 75% of the chemicals could affect the skin, eyes,and other sensory organs, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. Approximately 40–50% could affect the brain/nervous system, immune and cardiovascular systems, and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% could cause cancer and mutations.
Health impacts from fracking are only now being examined by health experts, since such large-scale drilling is a recent phenomenon. Exposure to toxic chemicals even at low levels can cause tremendous harm to humans; the endocrine system is sensitive to chemical exposures measuring in parts-per-billions, or less. Nevertheless, many of the health risks from the toxins used during the fracking process do not express themselves immediately, and require studies looking into long-term health effects.
Despite the complexities of the on-site mixtures of chemicals and their specific contributions to health and environmental problems involved in fracking--conventional drilling practices are more old school and do have known health consequences. Researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health, University of Colorado, analyzed existing research of exposure to conventional petroleum hydrocarbons in occupational settings, and residences near refineries, in conjunction with known pollutants associated with fracking (nonconventional), in order to assess health risks to those residents living near fracking operations. Their basic conclusions were: the closer you live to drilling operations, the greater your health risk. Sounds obvious, but if you were to sue an oil company for the suspected killing a loved one via cancer, you would need a little more legal ammunition than "it just makes common sense" against an army of corporate lawyers.
Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has yet to investigate the potential impacts of fracking, the director of CDC's National Center for Environmental Health and the agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Christopher J. Portier, PhD, has called for health studies to be published.
A 2012 paper was published in the journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, examining the composition of state and federal advisory committees tasked to consider the potential environmental and health effects of fracking in the Marcellus shale region. The researchers found that there was not one health expert among the 52 people comprising the various state and federal commissions and boards, even though public health was specified in the executive orders creating the committees.
