State Sen. Jim Wilson (D-Tahlequah) announced last week that a public meeting to consider a proposed commercial injection well to dispose of salt water near Vian will be held in the Vian High School auditorium at 6 p.m. Thursday.

I-MAC Petroleum Services Inc. of Muskogee has filed an application with the Oklahoma Corporation Commission to open a well near the southeast city limits of Vian. The permit requests permission to dispose of 40,000 barrels (1,680,000 gallons) of salt water a day under 1,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, measured at the surface. The salt water will be injected into a zone in the Arbuckle formation at a depth of 1,600 feet at the top and 3,100 feet at the bottom.

Wilson said representatives from I-MAC will be there to explain their proposal to anyone who is interested, and the corporation commission, which regulates the state oil and gas industry, including the disposal of wastes from drilling operations, will also be represented to explain the commission’s role and the process by which it regulates injection wells.

B&B Saltwater Disposal LLC, which operates an injection well in the Briartown area of southern Muskogee County, and at least three Vian residents have filed protests to the proposed well.

Meeting is not official

The Thursday meeting is not an official hearing. Next week’s meeting will be for information and discussion purposes, Wilson said. Legal notice 40,976 published in this past Thursday’s and this issue of Your TIMES states the permit hearing will be held at First Floor, Jim Thorpe Building, Oklahoma City at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 23. Wilson said he requested the public meeting to see if “we can get comfortable [with the proposed well] or pursue a formal protest.”

I-MAC proposes to inject saltwater waste from area oil and gas wells into the Arbuckle Formation, which lies under a large area that includes western Sequoyah County. Matt Skinner, information officer with the Corporation Commission, said in an Aug. 6 news article in Your Times, that the commission has guidelines to follow if anyone suspects contamination.

Skinner said in a recent telephone interview that an administrative law judge working for the commission will make the first ruling on the well. Anyone can submit information for consideration. Skinner said comments can be sent to him, and he will see that it is made a part of the case record. His e-mail address is m.skinner@occemail.com, and the postal address is Oklahoma Corporation Commission, 2101 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 310, Oklahoma City, Okla. 73105.

The judge will consider information and data provided by I-MAC, corporation commission engineers and any other interested party, and then recommend to corporation commissioners whether to approve or deny the application.

If the commissioners deny the application, the matter will end, or the applicant can appeal to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Skinner said. If commissioners feel there is enough reason to call a public hearing on the matter, it can do so, at which time those protesting can present evidence.

Skinner said that operators of injection wells are licensed to dispose of specific things, and they are responsible for what they put down the well. The commission can demand their records and audit them. Trucks hauling the waste are also regulated by the state.

“I can’t stress enough, if anyone has any reason to think that an operation is not working properly, report it,” Skinner said.

Commission inspectors take samples

Skinner also said that commission field inspectors, not disposal site operators, take the samples from wells and other disposal sites that are used to verify what was disposed of. The commission employs about 50 field inspectors.

While injection wells are uncommon in Sequoyah County, they are quite common in other parts of the state. Skinner said the state currently has 10,426 active injection wells, and the total drilled, including inactive wells, is 25,207.

He said that in fiscal year 2008, the commission approved 208 noncommercial disposal wells. These only take waste from the company drilling the well and not from other companies. The commission also approved 37 commercial wells that take waste from other companies.

In recent months, there has been an increase in the amount of oil and gas well waste coming into Sequoyah County for disposal. Some of this waste is being applied to farmland under a regulated program called landfarming, or soil farming. Soil farming is a name given to spreading water-based waste on farmland. The proposed injection well would add another disposal method.

Waste is coming from Arkansas

Much of the waste is coming into the county from Arkansas. In April the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality released a report critical of the disposal of oil and gas drilling wastes on Arkansas farmland.

In Arkansas that department regulates disposal of drilling wastes. The report attacked disposal practices at 11 landfarm sites, stating that fluids used in natural gas production had been improperly applied, causing environmental harm.

In November 2008, the department halted consideration of any new landfarm permits until a study of the 11 sites was completed. By April, the department had taken enforcement actions against all 11 landfarms and sought to revoke permits at two sites and was considering further enforcement measures. The Arkansas department is also stiffening its regulations as a result of the study.

Drillers had to find new places to dispose of the their waste fluids, and as a result, Sequoyah County and other parts of Oklahoma have seen an upsurge in waste disposal activity.

In addition to the Vian disposal well, the corporation commission Web site shows the number of requests for permits to spread drilling fluids on farmland in Sequoyah County went from only five between 1989 and 2008 to more than 80 so far this year alone.

Views vary widely on drilling waste toxicity

Skinner said that some farmers think it improves soil productivity when spread on farmland. That view is disputed by C.K. Rice, agronomist with the Oklahoma State University Extension Service, who says much of the research results on the wastes have shown reductions in plant growth, and more study is needed to learn the effects of land applying drilling fluids.

While the salt water to be injected in the Vian well has been compared to seawater, the experience of people near the decommissioned Sequoyah Fuels Nuclear Fuel plant near Gore was much more serious.

The injection well at Sequoyah Fuels is about six miles from the I-MAC proposed well. The I-MAC proposed well is between Interstate 40 and Vian just off of the east side of Highway 82.

A little over 25 years ago, Sequoyah Fuels pumped wastewater from their plant down an injection well, only to see it come out in home water wells near their property. In that case, the contamination was radioactive. In the Nov. 6, 1984, issue of Your TIMES, it was reported that “radium had been discovered in two specific areas, Dirty Creek near Warner, and a spring near Nicut.”

According to news stories in Your TIMES from fall and winter 1984, Sequoyah Fuels wanted to use a well on its property first drilled in 1969 to store 35 million gallons of treated raffinate by injecting it into the ground.

“Treated raffinate is a diluted solution of ammonium nitrate, a non-radioactive substance,” Jim Carr, then manager of Sequoyah Fuels, said in the Sept. 16, 1984, issue of Your TIMES. Raffinate is a by-product of the processing of uranium that was done at the Gore plant.

The permit was later denied and the 35 million gallons of raffinate was prohibited from being pumped into the well.

Sequoyah Fuels first tested the well by injecting 5 million gallons of treated raffinate between June 6 and Aug. 2, 1983. The raffinate was injected into the Arbuckle formation at a depth of 3,122 feet, according to the Sept. 16, 1984, issue of Your TIMES.

Sequoyah Fuels officials were later quoted as saying the water in the Arbuckle formation is already more radioactive than raffinate.

Disposal of oil and gas well waste is a serious and complex subject that is new to Sequoyah Countians, and the Thursday meeting should provide more information for county residents.