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Flux Tower/Recording Instrument Cluster at SandHills. Picture by Author
[Beyond the potential harm to global climate systems, the Tar Sands project poses additional risks to vital fresh water aquifers along the route through US states. This post is part of FDL's continuing coverage of Tar Sands development and associated XL pipeline through the US. ed.]
First, the disclaimer. I’m an ecosystem researcher and I’ve been working in the Nebraska SandHills for 10 or so years. The SandHills are the major recharge zone for the Ogallala (or High Plains) aquifer. That’s where water goes into the system to (hopefully) replace what we take out via wells.
The SandHills are also the largest “grass stabilized” dune field in the world, and without the grasses, they would be the largest sand dune field in the Western Hemisphere. The soils are very very sandy and porous, allowing quick and efficient infiltration of any fluids that happen to impinge upon them. My colleague and I have just made the first measurements of the recharge rate (although only at a single point) in the region, and I have a pretty good idea of how easily things can work their way down to the water table (i.e. the aquifer).
Probably the thing about the XL pipeline that scares me the most is he potential for one or more “small” leaks. A small leak in the buried pipeline (several barrels per day) would probably go unnoticed for a long time. The monitoring equipment at the pumping stations are designed to read and control flows of thousands and thousands of barrels per day, and a leak of just a few or maybe even ten just wouldn’t register. In that case, oil/tar would leak, and leak, and leak, mostly unnoticed. It probably wouldn’t be discovered until the plume worked its way 12 or so feet up to the surface, and then only if someone happens upon the site. Most places in the SandHills see very little human traffic. This scenario could dump hundreds or thousands of barrels of oil before it’s ever noticed.
Once in the soil, the sands will act somewhat like a refinery. The lighter fractions (benzene, toluene, heptane, etc) will very quickly infiltrate downward to the water table, then it’s not just a soil clean up. It’ll require the pumping and treatment of millions of gallons of water.
How far down does the oil have to go to get to the water? Well, that depends. The SandHills consist of three major ecosystems. By far, the most common are “dunal uplands”. These are the large, sculpted dunal ridges that can rise up to 300 feet above the inter-dunal valley floors. If the pipeline is buried 12 or so feed below the surface, there could be 100 or more feet to the actual water table. The other common ecosystems are “dry valley floors” where the water table is between 3 and 30 feet below the surface, and “subirrigated meadows” where the water table intersects the land surface at least for part of the year. In either of these ecosystems, the leak would be directly (or almost directly) into the aquifer.
Is there a real threat of a leak? I certainly think so. TransCanada grossly underestimated the potential for leaks on their existing pipeline. They estimated that there would be one leak every 7 years. Since the line has opened (2 or 3 years ago) there have been 12 or so.
So what would the solution be? The country wants oil. The world needs the clean water of the aquifer. The pipeline will leak. Simply move the route to a less ecologically sensitive area! I’ll bet that the cost to move the route will be much less than TransCanada will spend cleaning up the mess they are sure to make!
Update:
I just wanted to add a bit more because of a couple of the comments. The greatest value of the Ogallala aquifer is as a provider of irrigation water. 30% of all the irrigation water used in the U.S. is “mined” from the Ogallala. Now in fairness, a massive spill in the SandHills probably won’t show up in water pumped in Kansas or Texas (at least for a thousand years or so). Many of the “connections” between parts of the aquifer are rather tenuous and it takes a long time for a particular “drop” of water to move from one place to another. On the other hand, it will affect very large parts of Nebraska, and we do use most of the water and produce most of the food that can be attributed to this resource.
41 Comments
Nice post! Recommended. I’m social ecologist and became aware of the project here at FDL. I’m reviewing the EIS now. I’m trying to catch-up. Do you know if any groups have sought an injunction on environmental grounds? I’d be surprised if no one has… It’s probably too late but it still might be an option. The deficiencies of the EIS are solid grounds. I’m not a lawyer but I’ve worked with many as an environmental advocate. Do you have an attorney working with you?
Thanks for the tech-like data. Good post. Rec’d.
One quibble though:
“I’ll bet that the cost to move the route will be much less than TransCanada will spend cleaning up the mess they are sure to make!”
You mean like BP living up to its responsibility in the Gulf? Or perhaps the financial industry eating the losses caused by their fraud and going out of business? Like that? Free market functioning the way it’s supposed to? Please. Screw that pipeline! STOP THAT PIPELINE! How about they spend the money developing alternate carbon neutral energy sources? How ’bout that?
And the cost of drilling mud would have been a lot cheaper than what the blowout eventually cost BP. You can’t trust any company to do the right thing, the smart thing, the sustainable thing when everybody has become so myopic that they can’t see past next quarter’s profit reports. Period.
It seems so unbelievable, to me, that we are even having to discuss this. Water…is the gold of tomorrow. There is no excuse for doing anything that might threaten it. I believe that During the Bob Kerry Administration there was a big deal about a nuclear storage facility. The facility was moved after much protest and two governors fighting it. We took a fine to stop it, as I recall. Anyway, I wonder if you could get Bob Kerry involved? I wonder if some of the same arguments could be made. Also, Ted Turner owns a large amount of the land over the acquifer. He is a reknowned environmentalist…I am hoping he is already involved in this push! If not, his money and name could help. You might also see if you can get Buffet interested. He’s a corporate lover, but he might care about this issue. Just about anyone who knows about the acquifer would have to be at least somewhat concerned. Buffet certainly knew about the moving of the nuclear storage facility.
OMB, you said: “The SandHills are also the largest “grass stabilized” dune field in the world, and without the grasses, they would be the largest sand dune field in the Western Hemisphere”
There will surely be widespread damage to the grasses during the construction phase of the proposed pipeline. Wouldn’t there then be a risk of destruction of the dune system itself by erosion by the wind?
Great Post
Recommended
Great post.
Recommended. Tweeted.
A leak very 7 years? Well in that time they can just begin cleaning up the last leak then IF they ever begin in the first place.. Why not just run the pipeline through lake Michigan and we can just “skim” the pollution off the top?
Is an above ground pipeline a la the Alaskan a feasible alternative? It would certainly make leak detection a lot simpler. Not to defend the larger concept of the pipeline but just as a technical matter.
yeppers – rec., rec., rec, and re tweeted – thanks so much
Yep, there would be damage, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that they would remediate the trenching operation. In fact, the SandHills are riddled with what are called “blow outs”. These are areas that have lost their grass cover and the sands start to blow. They can range in size from a few feet across to more than an acre. They can be started by many things…. a destabilized slope slumping, cattle congregating and trampling (usually around power poles and fences) or maybe by heavy construction/trenching machines. Once they get going, they can be hard to fix. If you drive through the SandHills, you’ll invariably see a bunch of old tires lying around in bare sand. That’s a rancher trying to stabilize a blowout so that the grasses can re-establish themselves. In good, wet times, they can heal over with grass, but it’s not something that we could count on Mother Nature to automatically fix.
Yeah, I know…. what an optimist! Imagine! A big multinational corporation acting responsibly!
I’d imagine that the only way people like Ted Turner (who is the largest private land owner in the SandHills) or Warren Buffet could do anything about this would be to just buy TransCanada! hmmmm now THAT’S an idea!
Well well, OMB – on the firedoglake front page!
(OMB is my “brother-in-law” – the scientist hippy with the ponytail in my Tortilla’s video from Food Sunday here: http://my.firedoglake.com/kellycanfielddenver/2011/08/21/food-sunday-tortillas/ )
Recommended. Shit OMB this oil pipe line should never be built in the first place. The risks are just to freaking great. If we lose the aquifer the Midwest they will lose their access to fresh water!! What would those implications be for the whole country in food production and water to drink??? Just how would that be mitigated?? shit if they want to ship this crap to China make Canada use their own west coast ports and never ever risk the largest aquifer in the US!!!
The important thing about this pipeline is that the people apparently don’t want it. That should be enough – it’s their land, their future and I’m tired of the plundering of our country.
I’m concerned about the Sandhill Cranes, with half a million a year migrating through Nebraska. The “dance” of the Sandhill Crane includes them performing elaborate bowing displays with outstretched wings and leaping high into the air. More about the cranes here.
Might they be affected?
Just watch when they venture in a spill area and become covered in the most toxic form of crude..
This aquifer is enprmpus and involves much more than drinking water, but where water for human consumption is involved, it is worth remembering that humans can taste petroleum products at very, very small concentrations. Such water might not (or might) be harmful to drink but it could still be highly unpalatable.
The cranes wouldn’t be affected all that much. They are here very temporarily, usually between March and May. They almost exclusively cluster in a 60 or 70 mile East-West corridor between about Grand Island and Lexington, and only a few miles North or South of the Platte River. That’s pretty far from the proposed XL pipeline… actually, it’s closer to the existing pipeline.
While a lot of people do get their drinking water from the Ogallala, probably its greatest value in as a provider of irrigation water. 30% of all the irrigation water used in the U.S. comes from the Ogallala.
Kewl!!!
He’s put up a terrific read with info I had no knowledge of . . . well done OMB!!!
Rcc’d, front paged or not! lol
For The GEO Challenged Like Myself, Maps Of Neb. SandHills.
Tanks a bunch!
We’ve already done that. I promise you grass land denuded is desert and it will blow. As I recall the big Black Sunday storm of 1935 was from Nebraska.
(Continuing)
When you see a corporate, money-making project like this, be as small as a local housing development or as large as an oil ipeline,
a concerned citizen needs to start looking for hidden costs.
y hidden costs, I mean costs that will never appear in, e.g., the market price of a home or a barrel of oil, but which will nonethe less be a cost of the economic activity – building a bunch of houses or a pipeline.
Often those costs are borne over time by
a) individuals who are harmed by the activity and by
b) taxpayers who unknowingly subsidize the corporation and its economic activity through govt money spent on remediation.
Larue, that’s good to have. Thank you.
If you can taste it is it dangerous. Doesn’t take much of an aromatic benzene to cause cancer.
Much as I hate the notion of the pipeline and what damage it will do directly in Nebraska and other states I hate more what the Canadians are doing to their land to squeeze the muck out. I would hope no pipeline would make it more expensive to produce and perhaps discourage them from destroying more their great lands.
This aquifer supplies the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountain down into Mexico. It is way way overdrafted. Many areas it is to deep to pump now. It is the life blood from south of Canada through New Mexico. This is just batshit crazy. An EIS would never ever approve this truly asshole project. These people would sell their mothers.
Nope, the Black Blizzard of Apr. 14, 1935 (that fortuitously blew through an open capitol building window, as Harold Hammond testified before a congressional committee in support of new federal soil conservation measures) was dust mostly from Oklahoma and Kansas. Oddly enough, the SandHills weathered the droughts of the 1930s and 1950s relatively intact. This is mostly because the underlying aquifer helped sustain the grasses through the tough times. As a whole, the Sandhills are tough, but they’re no match for mechanized mayhem!
sometimes the kind of damage I mention above only comes with rare catestrophic events – events that supporters of a money-making activity discount as rare.
a perfect example of this rare catastrophic event that was predicted and ignored by supporters of the project in question is the damage to the nuclear reactors in japan this spring.
Individuals who will lose their homes, farms, and villages, together with the Japanese govt, will bear the cost of that predicted catastrophy.
Tokoyo electric power will bear little, if any cost despite the profits it has made.
(as an aside, today’s earthquake in Virginia had it’s epicenter 9 miles from two nuclear power plants at north anna. The plants, allegedly, shut down automatically.)
No arguments there…. the main products that would make it to the water table are hexane, heptane, benzene, toluene (and many more)…. most all are known carcinogens.
Just for reference, the High Plains aquifer (at least bits of it) underlie SD, NE, WY, KS, CO, NM, OK, and TX. However in most of those states, it’s only a little bit. Nebraska and Kansas overlie the lions share. Poor Texas (besides having Bushes and Perrys) has overdrawn their part of aquifer badly, and it will be hundreds of years before water from the SandHills (main recharge zone) will infiltrate clear down there.
We already have significant environmental and human toxic load (immunodeficiency disease and allergies can be markers of a person’s toxic load). Petroleum products are endocrine disruptors that accumulate in the food chain ending up in the “top predators” including humans. Drought conditions mean increase in toxin concentrations. Together this means lower quality of life (e.g. acceleration in cancer rates) and acceleration in the decrease in the US life span => a smaller, sicker population. You can look at the status of the indigenous settlements experimented on or compare to settlements in Bhopal, India and the Niger Delta.
Here’s a great resource page – look who the first two authors are;
http://www.communitysolution.org/resources.html
Boy, we all sound like a bunch of “Tree Huggers”. I hope O stands behind his statements when he was campaigning and does the right thing and NIXES this pipeline. It’s just not worth the possibility of this thing leaking into our water supply. Let’s all keep on O to do the right thing. I will tell my Congressman at his townhall tomorrow to say “NO” to the Keystone Pipeline.
One can appreciate OMB’s desire to limit intrusive activity in the Sandhills, but the author seems uninformed about the physical science involved with oil in aquifers. The Sandhills area is large, and the proposed pipline crosses a small Northeastern corner of it. It could be relocated, no doubt, but the “borders” of the Sandhills are fuzzy. I am a physical scientist but not an expert in these matters. I do not know the technical literature in this area but I have no doubt that it is huge. Commentators such as OMB should read some of it. The country has 100 years or more of experience with oil drilling, production, transport, and refining in which there have been thousands of episodes of oil being spilled on aquifer-like terrain in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, California, etc. What do we know about that? People in those areas are getting and using water from ground wells, despite spills and many boreholes in the areas that permit fast transfer. Drilling and boreholes are not part of the proposed pipeline. It is not a rarity, in fact it is the norm, that oil is in proximity to water. Oil is already present at millions of places in the U.S. where people get and use water. I think that the transport of oil constituents through ground water has been exhaustively studied; I suspect it is limited not least because of adsorption and microbes. To allege that an oil spill in Nebraska will contaminate water taken from the aquifer hundreds of miles away and years after a spill seems to be faulty science. We do need this pipeline. Replacement of the oil economy is fifty or a hundred years off. Those that don’t like it should consider the alternative, namely, buying oil from sources that take our money and jobs and hate our ways. The Arabs are cheering for OMB’s point of view.
Actually wubbelsg, I am an active researcher in the SandHills and have been for the last 10 years. My background is in physics, but for the last 20 or so years I’ve been doing ecosystem science, mostly atmospheric trace gas fluxes (includes CH4, CO2, and H2O among others). I’m pretty familiar with the literature about SandHills hydrology and know a bunch of people who’ve been doing hydrological studies out there for years and years and years.
Please don’t make assumptions about me and my qualifications without first meeting and talking to me.
I do realize that oil has been spilled in other places that lie above aquifers, but the SandHills are special because of the soil types out there. They’re classified as “Valentine Fine Sands” and in most areas they extend down to the aquifer gravels or to bedrock. The hydraulic conductivities (K values) are among the largest for any soil types and much larger than anywhere else above the aquifer. That translates into very easy permeation of fluids through the sands. Sure, the heavy petroleum fractions won’t migrate very far, but the lighter fractions (hexane, heptane, octane, toluene, etc etc) will disperse downward and laterally quite quickly. That’s my big worry! Many of those are known carcinogens in small (ppmv and ppbv) quantities. In Nebraska, we had an old ordinance plant near the town of Meade. It closed in the 50′s or 60′s and is now part of the University of Nebraska’s Ag research station. It’s also a super-fund clean up site because during the time that they made bombs, they routinely dumped solvents (hexane, heptane, toluene, etc, etc) into unlined soil pits. That has migrated to the water table and they are now doing a massive pumping, cleaning, re-pumping operation to abate the plume. It’s miles wide and threatening several municipal water supplies. The loamy mollisol soils under this “event” have much much smaller hydraulic conductivities than the the SandHills do.
I agree that a petro-free economy is quite a ways off and we will (for good or bad) be relying on oil for quite some time. I never said that we SHOULDN’T build the pipeline at all. I’m not qualified to make that decision. I’m saying that WATER is at least as important as oil right now and that we shouldn’t risk ruining one of our biggest reserves when we could simply re-route the proposed pipeline around the vulnerable area!
I take it that you must have some scientific background, so I’d be glad to discuss the ecology and hydrology of the SandHills with you. Maybe we could fill in some of each others “knowledge gaps”. If you are really interested in the SandHills, I’d recommend that you find a copy of “An Atlas of the SandHills” (University of Nebraska Press). It’s a great introduction!
Can I ask if you got some of your “talking points” from TransCanada (literature or other public statements)? I ask because some of them sound familiar.
I did not think I cast aspersions on your qualifications. I did not mean to, but I did suggest that you might be uninformed about the physical science and technical literature of oil in groundwater. Do you know precedents and studies that support your many assumptions about the size, speed, direction, components, etc. of the dispersion of small hydrocarbons in these cases? Water doesn’t “like” oil. You seem most worried about the “light fractions”, but I am not sure they will separate readily from the heavy components in even sandy soil. They are after all highly hydrophobic and reluctant to leap into water and leave their heavy hydrophobic cousins. This is a little different than dumping tank car loads of heptane, etc., into a soil pit. There must be thousands of cases of crude getting loose on related sandy soils. I tried to tell you that usable ground water is still readily available in the Western U.S. despite the oil. This would give many thoughtful persons pause in forecasting the bitter end of the aquifer from minor oil leaks in Nebraska. I know that the percentages of light hydrocarbons in oil are small because in the earliest days of gasoline refining, the yield of “straight run” gasoline from heavy crude oil was tiny. Yes, I am a chemist by trade, and no, I have never had any contact with TransCanada nor read anything by them. I eschew “talking points.” You should understand that I doubt your assumption that the pipeline risks “ruining one of our biggest reserves”. You certainly have not provided the technical evidence. The ecology of the Sandhills has very little to do with this matter. Hydrology is mostly off the point if considered by itself. The questions are about hundreds of interactions of peculiar contaminants with vast quantities of earthy, watery matter. These questions subtend certain scholarly subdisciplines of physics, chemistry, biology, geology, and engineering. If you have insights or knowledge from these relevant fields, you have not shown it. I think we can agree that rerouting the pipeline to areas less directly connected to the small Northeast corner of the aquifer would be salutary. In that case I’d like to hear more about that from you than dire predictions having no technical support.
You’re right, we can agree that rerouting the pipeline would be a good thing. A chemist eh? Well, that’s almost a physicist
I figured that you had a science background. You sound like an intelligent and thoughtful person, and I respect that. At first I was a little put off by the statement: “I do not know the technical literature in this area but I have no doubt that it is huge. Commentators such as OMB should read some of it.” because I am pretty familiar with the literature regarding water and the SandHills. Maybe I misinterpreted your intent. To the point that you make though, I do not know of any literature to definitively support the assumptions that I’m making about infiltration of hydrocarbons into the ground water but, on the other hand, I don’t know of any that refute it either! Can you point us to anything that definitely shows the hydrocarbons in crude oil will not percolate through the sands? I’d be very interested to see it. On the other hand, I do have some anecdotal evidence. Back when I was a kid, growing up in the Platte valley, the county used to control dust on gravel roads by spraying used oil and other “petro-sludge” on them. Eventually they had to stop doing it because once people started testing their well water, they were finding light hydrocarbons. My point is that unless there is evidence that the worst WON’T happen, we probably shouldn’t take the risk, especially if it could be avoided by a small move of the route.
I’m not predicting the demise of the whole aquifer. That’s next to impossible. The whole High Plains aquifer contains more than one and a half times the volume of water as Lake Huron. A spill could, however spoil the water system for an entire town (like what happened at Meade, Nebraska) or for a large part of a county like Rock or Brown counties where there are numerous “perched” water tables. Personally, I don’t think that it’s worth the risk given that TransCanada seems to be way off on their predicted failure rates.
Also, I didn’t mean to imply that you were working for TransCanada, it was just that some of your phraseology sounded much like what I’ve heard from their spokes-people. I respect the fact that you eschew talking points!
In any case, it sounds like you’ve come to a well reasoned conclusion based on your own experiences and research. So have I, and I doubt that either of us will change the others mind. Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. I hope that sometime in the distant future, we can share a couple of my homebrewed Spruce Porters and celebrate the fact that either the pipeline went somewhere else or that all of these arguments were moot!