TL: Environmental Costs of Oil SO: Peter Montague (GP) DT: April 26, 1991 Keywords: energy oil drilling pollution spills transportation greenpeace reports / Subject: ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS OF OIL Source and date: Peter Montague (Draft of 4/26/91) Note: Please feel free to use this report and the information contained, but please credit the author. EXCEPT WHERE NOTED, ALL UNITS IN THIS REPORT ARE GALLONS; to convert to barrels, divide gallons by 42. Background Petroleum, or crude oil, is a dark gooey liquid consisting mostly of hydrocarbon compounds and small amounts of compounds containing oxygen, sulfur, and nitrogen. After it is removed from the ground, oil is sent by pipeline and/or ship to a refinery where it is heated and distilled to separate it into gasoline, heating oil, diesel oil, asphalt, and other components. [Miller, pgs. 375-376.] Oil contributes to environmental destruction in at least the following ways: 1. EXPLORATION The establishment of drilling sites for oil exploration destroys natural areas. Tree-cutting, bulldozing (grading), roads, trucks, other heavy equipment used to establish drilling platforms or drill rigs--all contribute to noise, sedimentation, increased runoff, dust, and other typical byproducts of "development." Destruction and disturbance of wildlife (plants, animals, and fish) are a normal part of such operations. The precise effects depend on the location; sensitive ecosystems such as coastal areas, Alaska, and Antarctica will be harmed more than land-based sites at mid-latitudes. Increasingly, oil exploration is taking place in sensitive ecosystems. POLLUTANTS UNIQUE TO OIL DRILLING: There are two broad categories of wastes created by oil and gas exploration and production: (1) drilling muds, wellbore cuttings and chemical additives associated with the drilling and well completion process; and (2) wastes associated with oil and gas production, mainly produced water [defined below]. a) Drilling wastes Oil wells vary in depth from 30 feet to 30,000 feet. A drilling operation requires the use of "drilling fluids" to lubricate the drill bit, clean out the hole, and counterbalance geologic pressures. Water containing "drilling mud" is the typical drilling fluid but sometimes an oil-based drilling fluid is used, employing diesel, crude oil, or some other oil as its base fluid. Drilling fluids are forced down the hole and they return to the surface between the drill pipe and the walls of the hole; once they return to the surface, they are typically stored in a surface pit called as "reserve pit." [Reserve pits are not intended for disposal, but merely for providing a reservoir for drilling fluids. Reserve pits contain "hundreds of chemical constituents." (U.S. EPA 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 22.)] Different chemical additives may be used to give the drilling fluids particular characteristics. (There are many various formulations for drilling fluids, depending on the type of drill, type of geology, etc.) In late 1990, government sources revealed that substantial quantities of radioactivity come to the surface during oil exploration and production. Some reserve pits contain as much as 533 picocuries of radium per gram of soil (pCi/g). [Schneider Dec. 3, pgs-1, B6.] The U.S. Department of Energy has set 5 picocuries per gram as an acceptable level for soil. Uranium mine and mill tailings contain an average 700 pci/gram. [UCS, pg. 45.] In 1990, Shell Oil in Morgan City, LA, was proposing to dispose of oil-related radioactive wastes by pumping them back down an abandoned well 40 miles offshore near Eugene Island, LA. Company officials argued it was cheaper than sending them to a proper radioactive waste disposal site in Utah. The oil industry "can no longer use the environment as a free disposal system," said Dr. Paul Templet, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality [LDEQ]. Some workers in the oil industry are subjected to radiation exposures of 100 to 120 millirem per year--the equivalent of 5 to 6 chest x-rays. This is the maximum amount permissible for workers in the nuclear industry, but nuclear workers are monitored by an elaborate health and safety network to see that their exposures go no higher than this. The exposure of oil field workers is not monitored at all. There are no regulations governing environmental or worker contamination from oil-related radioactivity. Oily sludges inside old piping from the oil industry contains up to 1400 pci/gram -- twice as high as uranium mill tailings and far above the 4 to 8 pci/gram that occurs naturally in Mississippi soils. [Schneider, Dec. 24, pg. A9.1 Documents that came to light in a lawsuit reveal that oil industry officials knew as early as 1948 that oil exploration and production carried with it a radioactive hazard. [Schneider, Dec. 24, pg. A9.] b) Produced water This is brine (very salty water) brought to the surface from the hydrocarbon-bearing strata during extraction of oil and gas. It can include formation water [ancient water in the geologic formation], injection water [water injected into a hole to increased the pressure to force oil and/or gas to the surface], plus a variety of chemicals pumped down the hole to increase the flow of oil. Produced water contains "hundreds of chemical constituents." [U.S. EPA 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 22.] New oil wells may bring up zero produced water with each barrel of oil. Older, so-called "stripper" wells may bring up as much as 100 gallons of produced water with each gallon of oil. [U.S. EPA 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 40.] Produced water contains heavy metals and volatile organics such as benzene. Most produced water in Louisiana contains sufficient benzene to qualify as a legally hazardous waste under RCRA, except that it is currently exempted from RCRA by regulation. [Subra, pg. 1.] Produced water often contains significant quantities of radioactivity in the form of radium-226 and radium-228; a survey of produced water by Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality [LDEQ] showed that activity of these two isotopes averaged 175 picocuries per liter (pCi/1) and 180 pci/l, respectively. [LDEQ, pg. 1] Radium-226 has a half-life of 1600 years; it is an alpha and gamma emitter. Radium-228 has a half- life of 5.75 years; it is beta and gamma emitter. [GE, pgs. 39-41.] Nuclear facilities regulated by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) are allowed to discharge water containing no more than 30 pci/l, so produced water in Louisiana exceeds allowable NRC limits by approximately a factor of 6. STATISTICS: American Petroleum Institute (API) estimates that 69,734 wells were drilled in the U.S. in 1985, with each well creating an average of 217,686 gallons of drilling muds and fluids, plus 12.6 million gallons of produced water. The total drilling fluids and muds produced by the 69,734 wells was 15.1 billion gallons; total produced water was 877.8 billion gallons. [U.S. EPA, 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 11.] Obviously, these are large quantities of wastes with a potential for contaminating surface water, groundwater, and soil. U.S. EPA says the total of "drilling wastes and produced wastes" from oil and gas production in the U.S. is 2 to 3 billion tons; if we take 2.5 billion tons as the correct figure, this is 3 times as much as all municipal solid wastes (which totals 160 million tons/yr) and is 23% of all "solid wastes" produced by municipalities and by industry in the U.S. [U.S. EPA 1988, pg. 33317] Here's a breakdown: Industrial non-hazardous waste: 7.6 billion tons (includes 55.8 million tons from electric utilities) [65%] Oil & gas wastes: 2 to 3 billion tons (including both drilling wastes and produced wastes) [21.5%, if 2.5 billion tons] Mining wastes: 1.4 billion tons [12%] Municipal solid wastes: 160 million tons [1.4%) THESE WASTES ARE ALL EXEMPT FROM RCRA. They may or may not be regulated by individual states; even states with regulations may not actually have any enforcement program. II - OIL PRODUCTION WELLS There are approximately 842,000 producing oil wells in 38 states. In 1985 they produced 352.8 million gallons of oil per day, or 128.8 billion gallons per year. They also produced 44 billion cubic feet of gas daily, or 16 trillion (16 x 1012) cubic feet of gas per year. [U.S. EPA 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 4.] Petroleum exploration and production employed about 421,000 people in 1985. Production varies enormously. Daily oil production from a single oil well varies from 483,500 gallons on Alaska's North Slope to 400 gallons in many thousands of "stripper" wells. Pennsylvania has been producing oil for 125 years; Alaska for 15 years. Maryland has 14 wells; Texas has 269,000. WAYS THAT OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION IMPACTS THE ENVIRONMENT: (a) Groundwater degradation can occur when drilling fluids and/or produced water are injected into the ground either to get rid of them or to enhance the flow of oil. Groundwater contamination cannot be remediated at any reasonable price, so this kind of contamination is essentially permanent. (b) Reserve pits can leach their contents into groundwater. Again, remediation is prohibitively expensive, so the contamination is permanent. (c) Drilling fluids and produced water are sometimes discharged into bays and estuaries (particularly in Texas and Louisiana). Plants, fish and birds become contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs--a witch's brew of toxic and carcinogenic compounds) and heavy metals (arsenic [a carcinogen], cadmium, boron, chromium, copper, lead and zinc). (d) Oily wastes are sometimes discharged into unlined pits for disposal. Groundwater contamination, and contamination of local wildlife can result. (e) Produced water is sometimes discharged into unlined pits for disposal. Groundwater contamination can occur. (f) Produced water is sometimes discharged to surface streams, degrading water quality. (g) Alaska's North Slope is a special case. For the first 15 years of oil production, Alaska laws allowed drilling fluids to be discharged directly onto the tundra and onto roadways, and about 100 million gallons of these fluids was discharged annually in this fashion, releasing heavy metals, salts, and oil directly into the environment. [U.S. EPA, 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 19.] Recent changes in Alaska law are intended to control this practice. (h) Improperly plugged, and unplugged, abandoned wells are an important source of contamination. There are an estimated 1,200,000 abandoned oil and gas wells in the U.S. [U.S. EPA, 1987, Vol. 4, pg. 14]. Improper plugging, or lack of plugging, allows brine and wastes (drilling fluids or produced water) to migrate into fresh-water aquifers. As time passes and old well casings deteriorate, abandoned wells provide new pathways for water to flow from one stratum to another below ground. Since deep strata all contain briny water and since there is often great pressure tending to force water upward, abandoned wells are a major threat to upper strata that carry fresh water suitable for drinking, for agriculture, or for industrial purposes. Table 1. Sources of U.S. oil in 1987 Domestic production: 127.97 billion gallons [SA, Table 1208] (64.1%) OPEC countries: 36.79 billion gallons [SA, Table 960] (18.4%) Arab OPEC countries: 14.57 billion gallons [SA, Table 960] (7.3%) Non-OPEC countries: 34.86 billion gallons [SA, Table 960] (17.5%) III. TRANSPORTATION to refineries (mainly pipelines, storage tanks, ships, more tanks, more pipelines). Oil spills are the best-known example of problems in transportation of crude petroleum to refineries. There are anywhere from 8 to 45 large tanker spills each year, releasing a total of anywhere from 5,000 to 390,000 tons of crude. The average in recent years seems to have been about 12 tanker spills per year, releasing a total of 100,000 tons of crude. These figures do not include spills caused by military conflicts. [SA Table 1093.] "The leaking of petroleum products and other chemicals from underground storage tanks has contaminated groundwater. These releases were serious enough to result in a new program for regulating underground storage tanks. This program is spelled out in the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments of 1984 (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act). [Lave p. 12] There are some six million tanks in the U.S. for storing petroleum, petroleum by-products, and petroleum-related chemicals, many of which are toxic and carcinogenic. Of these, two million are large commercial tanks used by gasoline stations, airports, and refineries; the remainder are small tanks, such as home heating fuel tanks. No one knows the exact number, but U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that, of the nation's two million commercial tanks, some 300,000 to 500,000 are leaking. That is, 15% to 25% of the nation's large tanks are leaking, EPA believes. [NY Times July 29, 199C, pg. E4.] Some tanks have been leaking for a long time and have spilled large puddles of oil underground. A puddle beneath a Mobil Oil tank in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, NY, contains 17 million gallons of oil. The Tosco Corporation owns a tank near San Francisco Bay with a 28 million-gallon puddle of oil beneath it. The largest known oil spill beneath a tank is at Chevron Corporation's El Segundo, CA, facility--a puddle comprising 200 million gallons of oil. [NY Times July 29, 1990, pg. E4.] To get these oil spills into perspective, it helps to know that the Exxon Valdez spill released 11 million gallons, so the Mobil puddle in Brooklyn is 50% larger than the Valdez spill. The Tosco Corp's spill contains more than 2.5 times as much oil as the Valdez spill, and Chevron's El Segundo spill is 18 times larger than the Valdez spill. It is also worth noting that this Chevron spill is more than 3 times as large as the 64-million gallon release in the Persian Gulf in February, 1991, which caused President Bush to call Saddam Hussein an "eco terrorist." Underground tanks (or large above-ground tanks partly buried in the ground) have an expected lifetime of 20 to 40 years. "After that they don't have anywhere to go but to corrode," says Helga Butler, chief of planning and communications for the EPA's Office of Underground Storage Tanks. [NY Times July 29, 1990, pg. E4.] (Just as all landfills must eventually leak, all storage tanks must eventually leak. The second law of thermodynamics--a fundamental law of physics--guarantees that all physical structures spontaneously become more disordered as time passes. "Disorder" in a tank or a landfill eventually spells leakage. Humans, of course, by applying energy to a situation, can temporarily reverse the disorder, for example, by welding a patch over a hole in a tank; nevertheless, left alone, any tank will slowly degrade and then leak.) In 1990, EPA issued new regulations requiring underground tanks to be made of non-corrosive material (such as fiberglass, which is likely to degrade more slowly than some metals). New tanks must also be equipped with leak detector systems. (Such systems will tell you that the horse has left the barn, so it's time to shut the door.) Finally, each owner of a commercial underground tank must carry at least $1 million in liability insurance--a requirement that has driven many gasoline stations out of business. Even with the new regulations, EPA predicts that 62,000 private water wells and 4,700 public water wells have been or will be contaminated by underground leaks. [NY Times July 29, 1990, pg. E4.] Cleanup of underground contamination is very expensive and is not satisfactory. Water contaminated with petroleum and its byproducts cannot be cleaned up to drinking water standards, EPA says. EPA estimates that cleanup from petroleum spilled under- ground could cost upwards of $32 billion, but the agency admits that even with expenditures of this size, cleanup will only be partially successful. in proposing underground storage tank regulations in 1987, EPA admitted cleanup doesn't really work: "EPA has found no corrective action technology capable of bringing water quality back to national [drinking water] standards...... [Federal Register, April 17, 1987, pg. 12674.] In East Setauket, Long Island, a small hole in an underground pipe owned by Northville Industries has allowed over a million gallons of gasoline to spill into the groundwater over the years. The gasoline is floating on Long Island's sole source of drinking water; the underground puddle of gasoline today covers 30 acres and, in some places, is over seven feet deep. Since 1987, Northville has spent $10 million on cleanup and is expected to spend millions more. [NY Times July 29, 1990, pg. E4.] States try to hold the polluter liable, but the federal government has imposed a 0.1 cent per gallon tax on gasoline to create a $500 million fund to pay for cleanups where the responsible party has disappeared or has gone bankrupt. States with the worst problem are those where groundwater lies close to the surface and where groundwater provides drinking water for a large proportion of the populace. Florida seems to be hardest hit; there groundwater is often within a foot of the surface and 90% of the population drinks groundwater. Florida's worst problem yet discovered: During the past five years, 340,000 gallons of oil have been pumped from beneath the tarmac at Miami airport. IV. REFINERIES Refinery wastes: There were 219 oil refineries operating in the U.S. in 1987 [SA Table 1219]; between they, they processed 238.7 billion gallons of crude. They also created wastes legally designated as "hazardous wastes"--types KO48-KO52. Treatment standards for these wastes appeared in the Federal Register Vol. 55, No. 106 (June 1, 1990). Waste Treatment Technology News February, 1991, [pg. unknown] says, "Substantial quantities of KO48-KO52 wastes were previously disposed of in large on-site waste pits which now require remediation, as established under the RCRA and CERCLA ("Superfund") programs. [See my computer file c:\mirror\grnlnk\2--25a. log for more information on new treatment methods for KO48-KO52 wastes.] According to Lave (pg. 12), Elkin in 1977 estimated that total hydrocarbon losses from petrochemical refineries may range from 0.1 to 0.6 percent of crude throughput. Lave pg. 12 says US EPA in 1979 "detected 24 toxic pollutants even in the treated effluents of petroleum refineries. These pollutants included one chemical (benzene) identified by the National Toxicology Program as a known carcinogen and four chemicals--1,2-dichloroethane, bis(2,3)ethylhexylphthalate, benzo(a)pyrene, and benzo(a)anthracene--identified as likely carcinogens. The major air pollutants from petroleum refineries include hydrogen sulfide, selenium, fluorides, and hydrocarbons. While the individual concentrations of these substances are often very small, together they add significant amounts to the pollutant load in the environment." (Lave p. 12) V. PETROCHEMICAL PLANTS VI. TRANSPORTATION of products to end-users: trucks, barges, ships, pipelines VII. USING THE STUFF Uses of petroleum in the U.S. in 1987 [Miller, pg. 376]: Transportation: 63% Industrial: 25% Residential and commercial: 9% Generating electricity: 3% Petrochemicals: 7% in the U.S. (3% worldwide) Typical yields from a barrel of crude oil [1965 data; Walters, pg. 250]: Gasoline 44.2% Fuel oil 26.9%. Liquefied gas (propane, butane, isobutane) 6.7% Jet fuel 5.0% Asphalt 3.2% Petrochemicals 3.2% aliphatics (Walters, pg. 263) aromatics (Walters, pg. 267) inorganics (Walters, pg. 268) Kerosine 2.5% Others 8.7% a) GASOLINE: Nitrogen: Combustion of oil creates significant nitrogen-related air pollution. Combined with unburned hydrocarbons in the presence of sunlight, nitrogen compounds give rise to smog. [ADD] Ozone: Gasoline combustion and serves as a precursor for the production of ozone at the ground surface--a serious pollutant that prevented 101 U.S. cities from meeting federal air quality standards in the period 1986-88. [New York Times March 11, 1990, Section 4, pgs. 1, 4; ADD.] Scientists at the University of California estimate that the use of gasoline and diesel fuel in the United States causes up to 30,000 premature deaths each year. [Miller, pg. 498.] Carbon dioxide: Global warming will certainly result if we continue to increase the atmospheric content of CO2. The current debate isn't about whether warming will occur; it's about precisely when we will be able to prove scientifically that warming is occurring. It's only a matter of time. Each ton of fossil fuel we burn releases about 3 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, half of which remains in the atmosphere for a long period (ca. 1000 yr.) [Walters, pg. 400.] Carbon monoxide: Cars without pollution control devices produce 2.9 lb. CO for each gallon of gasoline [Walters, pg. 403].) Sulfur: Burning oil releases substantial quantities of sulfur into the atmosphere. Sulfur-related air pollution includes acid rain, which affects - people, crops, trees, fish, and other wildlife. Nitrogen compounds also contribute to acid rain production. b) DIESEL OIL: Five separate studies in the last 3 years have shown that diesel exhaust certainly causes cancer in laboratory animals, and two studies of railroad workers show that it causes cancer in humans as well. [NIOSH] As a result, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has issued a special publication, Carcinogenic Effects of Exposure to Diesel Exhaust, offering this recommendation: "As prudent public health policy, employers should assess the conditions under which workers may be exposed to diesel exhaust and reduce exposures to the lowest feasible limits." Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines; they produce more horsepower per gallon of fuel, and they use a less- refined (thus cheaper and more plentiful) fuel. When diesel fuel burns in an engine's combustion chamber, the resulting exhaust contains gases and particles (soot). The gases include nitric oxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxides of sulfur, and hydrocarbons (e.g., ethylene, formaldehyde, methane, benzene, phenol, 1,3- butadiene, acrolein, and polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs], several of which are known carcinogens). Of the particles in diesel exhaust, 95% are less than 1 micron in diameter and thus they are respirable, which is to say they are easily taken into the deepest portions of the human lung where they may lodge forever. The core of each particle is made up of pure carbon, but as many as 18,000 different chemicals from the gaseous portion of the exhaust may be adsorbed (attached) onto the carbon core, and thus diesel exhaust can carry a whole host of exotic, toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into the deepest portions of your lung--down in the region where the transfer of gas occurs to put oxygen into your blood stream and to take carbon dioxide out. As recently as 1986, NIOSH concluded that diesel exhaust did not cause cancer in laboratory animals. However, in the period 1986-1989, five long-term animal studies, and two epidemiologic studies of humans, all concluded that exposure to diesel exhaust causes lung cancer. As a result, NIOSH reversed itself and in August, 1988, issued a special "current intelligence bulletin" to get the word out that diesel fumes are dangerous. NIOSH estimates that 1.35 million American workers are routinely exposed to diesel exhausts. c) HEATING OIL: d) ASPHALT: e) PETROCHEMICALS: (7%) f) pesticides Acute pesticide poisonings kill up to 20,000 individuals each year worldwide. [World Resources Institute, World Resources 1988-89 (NY: Basic Books, 1988), pg. 29.] In addition, the National Academy of Sciences estimates that pesticides contribute to the cancer deaths of roughly 10,000 Americans each year through low-level contamination of their food by pesticides. [National Research Council, Regulating Pesticides in Food; The Delaney Paradox (Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences, 1987; GET page.] 2) plastics 3) halogenated industrial compounds (solvents, etc.) 4) medicines and pharmaceuticals 5) paints 6) fertilizers 7) detergents 8) synthetic rubber 9) synthetic fibers 10) cosmetics 11) adhesives 12) explosives 13) other petroleum-related chemicals The chemical and petrochemical industries create 70% of all hazardous wastes in industrialized countries (50% to 60% of all hazardous wastes in developing countries.) [World Resources institute, World Resources 1987 (NY: Basic Books, 1987), Chapter 13, pgs. 201-219.] NOTES AND REFERENCES ACS. American Chemical Society. Chemistry in the Economy. Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1973. GE. Walker, William F. and others. Chart of the Nuclides. San Jose, CA: General Electric Co., 1977. Lave, Lester B., and Arthur C. Upton. Toxic Chemicals, Health and the Environment. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins Press, 1987. LDEQ. Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, "Oil and Gas Regulations." January, 1991. [Pg. 35 of NCNOGW mailing, February, 1991.) Miller, G. Tyler, Jr. Living in the Environment; An Introduction to Environmental Science (6th edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1990. NIOSH. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Carcinogenic Effects of Exposure to Diesel Exhaust [Current Intelligence Bulletin 50; DHHS (NIOSH) Publication No. 88-116]. Cincinnati, OH: Division of Standards Development and Technology Transfer, NIOSH, Robert A. Taft Laboratories [4676 Columbia Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 45226], August, 1988. SA. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1990. 110th edition. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990. Schneider, Keith. "Radiation Danger Found in Oil Fields Across the Nation." New York Times December 3, 1990, pgs. 1, B6. Schneider, Keith. "2 Suits of Radium Cleanup Test Oil Industry's Liability." New York Times December 24, 1990, pg. 19. Schneider, Keith. "U.S. Wrestles With Gap in Radiation Exposure Rules." New York Times December 26, 1990, pgs. A1O. Subra, Wilma. "Louisiana Report--Oil and Gas Update - January, 1991." New Iberia, LA: Subra Co., 1991. [Pg. 36 of the NCNOGW mailing, February, 1991.] UCS. Union of Concerned Scientists. The Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Revised Edition. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975). U.S. EPA. 1988. "40 CFR Parts 257 and 258. [FRL-3227-7] Solid Waste Disposal Facility Criteria," Federal Register Vol. 53, No. 168 (Aug. 30, 1988), pgs. 33314-33422. U.S. EPA. 1987. Report to Congress: Management of Wastes From the Exploration, Development, and Production of Crude Oil, Natural Gas, and Geothermal Energy. Four volumes. (Springfield, VA: National Technical Information Service, Dec., 1987). NTIS Order Numbers: Vol. 1: PB88-146220; Vol. 11: PB88-146238; Vol. Ill: PB88-146246; Vol. IV: PB88-146253. Walters, Edward A., and Eugene M. Wewerka. Contemporary Chemistry, Concepts and Issues. Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill, 1974.