Elimination of oil waste rules would be a toxic mistake

Editor,

The campaign for the governor’s office has opened with a barrage of words promising to change or eliminate the “pit rule,” a state rule that requires disposal of toxic drilling wastes in certified landfills rather than burial at the drilling site. Something’s missing from the political statements: the facts.

Here are some arguments and some facts.

Argument: Echoing the industry’s statements — candidates claim there is no science behind the regulations.

Facts: The science was established during 17 days of hearings with expert testimony. The hearing record exceeds 5,000 pages. In a time frame of decades to hundreds of years, salt and other chemicals buried on-site will migrate to contaminate the ground water, the ground surface, or both. It’s the ground surface where plants, animals and people live. In the short term, thousands of toxic burial units, one at each well, leave the ground less valuable for any purpose. Would you buy land sprinkled with a toxic waste dump every several hundred yards?
Argument: The cost of removing drilling wastes to a landfill is too much.

Facts: Estimates of the actual costs vary, depending on the depth and geology of the well. The industry has steadily refused to express the cost as a fraction of the capital cost of the well and its infrastructure. Does proper disposal of the toxic wastes add 1 percent or 10 percent to the cost? Somehow, the industry manages to produce petroleum by drilling wells offshore and on the North Slope of Alaska. Can it not afford proper waste disposal here?

Argument: The pit rule is driving the industry and jobs away from our state.

Facts: The count of active drilling rigs dropped when the price of oil dropped, not when the pit rule took effect. From January 2009 to January 2010, Colorado’s rig count dropped 40 percent; Texas’s rig count dropped 19 percent, Wyoming’s rig count dropped 39 percent and New Mexico’s rig count dropped 7 percent. In the last year, New Mexico apparently did better than other oil-producing states.
Argument: The pit rule eliminates jobs in New Mexico.

Facts: Proper waste disposal creates jobs. Thirty years ago, we heard the same dire predictions when we advocated air pollution controls for the Four Corners Power Plant. The control equipment now exists, someone had a job installing it, someone else now has a job maintaining it, and people still haves electricity as well as cleaner skies.
Argument: There is no proof of contamination from pits.

Facts: Impact on ground water is reported only after someone’s water is contaminated. By then, the damage is done. There has been no widespread testing beneath and above old pits, but we did a little testing on our own. Yes, salt moves both ways. If the wastes are buried in a plastic sheet, as is a recent practice, the salts won’t degrade. The plastic sheet will.
Argument: Other states don’t require removal of toxic wastes from the drill site.

Facts: Usually true. In some other states, the wastes are less toxic, but here’s the important point: By federal regulations, almost all other industries are required to dispose of hazardous or toxic wastes properly. The petroleum industry obtained a unique exemption, leaving the regulation of drilling waste up to the states. In any state, the industry can threaten to move to another state. It’s a political process of divide and conquer. If New Mexico’s regulation were to stand, it might negate the threat here and elsewhere. Somebody will want the oil.

Donald A. Neeper
New Mexico Citizens for Clean Air & Water