The pipeline that ruptured and spilled nearly 3 million gallons of
saltwater, contaminating a nearby creek and two rivers near Williston,
could have been monitored remotely but the system wasn’t turned on, a
regulator said last week.
Meadowlark Midstream, a subsidiary of Summit Midstream, relied on
checking meters by hand rather than a more sophisticated system that had
been installed, said Lynn Helms, director of the Department of Mineral
Resources.
The investigation into the spill is still ongoing, but Helms
estimates the pipeline was leaking for more than 12 days before the
rupture was discovered Jan. 6.
By being allowed to leak for so long, the spill significantly
contaminated groundwater near Blacktail Creek, and a North Dakota
Department of Health official says the cleanup will take at least five
years.
“I think five years would be very optimistic,” said Dave Glatt, chief
of the Environmental Health Section. “Ten years, there still may be
talk about this.”
Ron Sylte, who owns the land where the spill happened, said pipelines should require greater monitoring.
“Common business practice is if you put something in on one end and
it doesn’t come out the other end, you’ve got a problem. You should be
able to monitor it that way,” Sylte said. “Somebody dropped the ball.”
Meadowlark Midstream said in a statement the pipeline that ruptured
met all requirements of the North Dakota Industrial Commission, which
began regulating about 20,000 miles of gathering pipelines last year.
Monitoring
The pipeline that ruptured north of Williston transported produced
water, the briny waste product that comes to the surface along with oil
and gas, from 40 well pads to a saltwater disposal well. The company
also operates produced water pipelines in two other nearby segments that
were shut down after the rupture was discovered.
The pipelines had flow meters and the capability of being monitored
by supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, a remote system
to gather data from the meters, Helms said.
Why the company wasn’t using the SCADA system is part of the Department of Mineral Resources investigation.
“They had to drive out to the site, read the number on the meter, and
then go site to site, read the numbers and sit down with a computer and
add them up to try to see if there were differences that indicated a
leak,” Helms said.
In addition, the company performed monthly flyover inspections. A flyover Dec. 30 did not detect evidence of a pipeline rupture.
The state Industrial Commission does not require gathering pipelines
to have meters or monitoring systems. State legislation being proposed
would strengthen requirements for pipeline monitoring.
Before regulators will allow Meadowlark Midstream to resume operating
these produced water lines, they are requiring the use of SCADA, Helms
said.
“We want real-time pressure readings, meter readings and temperature
readings in their control room when they start up again,” Helms said.
In addition to the pipeline that ruptured, regulators are especially
focused on making sure a pipeline that crosses Blacktail Creek upstream
of Blacktail Dam has a better monitoring system, Helms said.
Investigation
The Department of Mineral Resources is interviewing landowners,
former contractors, employees of oil and gas operators, disposal well
operators and pipeline operators in the area to investigate the timeline
of the pipeline leak, Helms said.
“When did it happen, when did it start and when could it, should it have been detected?” Helms said.
The investigation will look at lab analysis of the ruptured pipeline,
engineering drawings of the pipeline and whether the pipe was installed
per the manufacturer’s recommendations.
The composite material used to make the pipeline also is being
studied, particularly because the pipeline was six months old when it
ruptured. Helms said state regulators know of only three places the
material, called FiberSpar LinePipe, is used in North Dakota, however it
was only last year that reporting pipeline material and other
information became a requirement. The manufacturer says it has thousands
of miles of the pipeline material installed, primarily in Texas, Helms
said.
Meadowlark Midstream said in a statement that the pipeline was
installed with certified FiberSpar experts and monitored by third-party
inspectors.
“Extensive testing is being conducted to understand why and how the ruptured occurred,” the company said.
Summit Midstream operates crude oil and natural gas pipelines around
the country but only operates produced water pipelines in North Dakota.
The company has 850 miles of pipeline in North Dakota and has invested
$800 million in the state since 2013.
Cleanup
The pipeline rupture released an estimated 70,000 barrels of produced
water, or nearly 3 million gallons, the largest spill of its kind in
North Dakota. The brine, which can also contain oil, hydraulic
fracturing fluid and other chemical compounds, is more difficult to
clean up than oil and can have devastating impacts to the environment.
The levels of chloride and ammonia detected at the rupture site were
“acutely toxic” to fish, Glatt of the state health department has said,
but a detailed biological assessment won’t be taken until the ice melts.
The contamination, which included an estimated 2,520 gallons of oil,
reached the Little Muddy River and the Missouri River after
contaminating Blacktail Creek.
The levels of chloride detected downstream have reduced significantly
as a result of the containment and cleanup operations, Glatt said. The
main concern now is groundwater that has been contaminated around the
creek.
“We need to cut that off from getting into the creek,” Glatt said.
The company, working with environmental contractor Stantec, has more
than 15 interceptor trenches along the creek to capture contaminated
groundwater so it can be hauled away for disposal.
Contaminated groundwater is still being removed from a 2006 pipeline
spill into Charbonneau Creek, which flows into the Yellowstone River in
northwestern North Dakota. That spill involved about 1 million gallons
of produced water, or one-third the size of the more recent spill.
“Anytime groundwater is contaminated, you’re looking at a minimum of five years,” Glatt said of the remediation.
Charbonneau Creek rebounded fairly quickly after the spill, Glatt said.
“These creeks typically are used to feast or famine where they have
droughts and floods. Their aquatic community is used to that. They have a
resiliency where they can rebound fairly quickly,” he said. “We’re
hopeful that’ll be the case here, but we really won’t know until that
(biological) assessment is done.”
Summit Midstream CEO Steve Newby said in a statement the company is committed to North Dakota and the cleanup of the site.
“We are making significant progress in these efforts, and remain
fully engaged in the important work of addressing the impacted land and
waterways as quickly as possible,” Newby said.
The state health department, together with the Environmental
Protection Agency, plans to take enforcement action against the company,
Glatt said. The Department of Mineral Resources also plans to issue its
own penalty, Helms said.
Meadowlark Midstream also is proposing a crude oil pipeline in Divide
and Burke counties in northwest North Dakota and will go before the
Public Service Commission on March 30 for a public hearing.
Chairman Brian Kalk said any company that has had a pipeline spill
will face greater scrutiny about what’s being done to prevent another
incident.
“Hopefully they have some better details as to why things happened,” Kalk said.