Utah grapples with regulation-violating toxic frac waste water; Danish Flats Environmental Services waste ponds sneakily avoided regulation for years; Methanol: “Largest single hazardous air pollutant emitted”

Utah grapples with toxic water from oil and gas industry, Grand County evaporation ponds avoided air quality regulation for years by Brian Maffly, August 24, 2014, The Salt Lake Tribune
A massive stream of wastewater tainted with hydrocarbons has been flowing into Utah from oil and gas mining on Colorado’s West Slope. Evaporation ponds used to process the contaminated water in Grand County have released tons of toxic chemicals into the air since April 2008. But the Colorado company running the 14-pond facility operated without a Utah air-quality permit for more than six years, public documents show, while providing officials faulty data that underreported its emissions and exaggerated the efficiency of its emission-control equipment.

Danish Flats Environmental Services finally secured a permit earlier this month and agreed to pay a reduced $50,000 fine for its failure to seek one in a timely manner. [Aren’t those industry “best practices and “best in the world” regulations the best?  Hugely profitable]

The Danish Flats experience reflects a larger threat to air quality posed by wastewater gushing out of Utah’s increasingly busy oil patch. The permit issued by the state Division of Air Quality (DAQ) for Danish Flats was the agency’s first associated with evaporation ponds, and it’s now examining other evaporation disposal sites in Utah.

Danish Flats, located north of Cisco, at first avoided regulation by asserting its emissions were “de minimis,” or too small to require a permit.

But a later, more reliable analysis indicated the company’s emissions were not negligible, but were instead tens and possibly hundreds of tons a year — revealing the site was a major emission source for hazardous air pollutants and volatile organic compounds.

“They were out of compliance for many years, but they hung on debating with DAQ over how to estimate emissions. It was clear they were never a de minimis source, ever,” said Chris Baird, a former member of the Grand County Council and Planning Commission who is now executive director of the Canyonlands Watershed Council.

Danish Flats operations manager Justin Spaeth declined to discuss the company without his engineering team and has not yet arranged such an interview.

There are 15 pond “farms” operating in the Uinta Basin to handle the liquid waste, known in the industry as “produced water.” All are smaller than Danish Flats — Utah’s largest complex of such ponds — and each has claimed its emissions are too small to require a permit.

Six are on tribal land and under federal jurisdiction. Of the nine overseen by DAQ, two have recently conceded their emissions may exceed the de minimis standard and have begun the permit process, according to agency director Bryce Bird.

The Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining, or DOGM, regulates the handling of this waste. But DAQ is now monitoring the air-quality impacts. Its permit for Danish Flats gives the company another 18 months to install a flare and related equipment to capture and burn pollutants — deemed the “best available” technology for controlling emissions.

Bird said DAQ believes the $50,000 fine is sufficient to secure compliance with state requirements in the future. “This is a new area of regulation; we are just working through the rest of the companies in the state,” Bird said. “Until we asked questions and started pressing the issue with Danish Flats, maybe they didn’t know” the full extent of their emissions.

Got antifreeze? »The largest single hazardous air pollutant emitted by Danish Flats came as a surprise.

Instead of the usual petroleum-based suspects, it turned out to be methanol, a chemical industry uses as antifreeze and a fracking agent.

Categorized as both a hazardous pollutant and a volatile organic compound, methanol is a form of alcohol. Unlike condensates, it is highly soluble in water, so it isn’t separated out by processing. [Emphasis added]

[Refer also to:

Connecticut: Three Year Fracking Waste Ban Signed into Law; Meanwhile, Michigan takes Pennsylvania’s Radioactive Frac Waste

Pennsylvania DEP: Range Resources Inc.’s fracking waste pits contaminated groundwater and soil at three Washington County sites

Companies Illegally Dumping Toxic Fracking Chemicals in Dawson Creek Water Treatment Systems, City to pay $4 Million and more for monitoring to try to stop illegal frac waste dumping

Nova Scotia: American Peter Hill, CEO of Triangle Petroleum, Still Hasn’t Cleaned up His Company’s Toxic Frac Waste from Years Ago, But Wants to Make More

Germany EPA Frac Report Released: Risks Associated with Fracing are Too High; “So far, no company has been able to present a sustainable waste management concept”

Benedict Lupo, owner of Youngstown oil and gas drilling company, sentenced to 28 months for dumping frac waste; “The creek was essentially dead”

Lupo has history of brine dumping; repeat violations stretch back to 1970s, Lupo fights off the law, dumps unabated with no convictions and small fines

First criminal case against a Shale firm [not Lupo] opens for toxic frac waste spill/leak/dumping; XTO Energy Inc., subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp. hires three law firms to defend itself

There are so many more cases of illegal frac waste dumping, there’s no longer time to cross reference even 10% of them

EnCana waste dumping from deviated drilling at 14-12-27-22 W4M near Hamlet of Rosebud November 2012

Encana waste dumping heavy on foodland at Rosebud, Alberta

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