News release from The University of Tulsa
Contact:
Rolf Olsen, (918) 631-2653
E-mail: [email protected]
Jan. 8, 1998
TU Team Installs 'Leach and Drain' System at Bison Preserve To Heal Two-Acre Site Damaged by Oil Well Brine
Tulsa, Oklahoma -- A project to halt erosion and restore vegetation at a two-acre site in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northeast Oklahoma, home to a wild herd of 625 buffalo, is being conducted by a team of University of Tulsa professors and students. The site was contaminated with salt as the result of an accidental release of salt water associated with oil production.
The spill occurred in 1995 after a break in a pipeline carrying brine from a collection tank to a reinjection well. Approximately two acres were stripped of vegetation.
"We've set up a 'leach and drain' system," explains Tom Harris, a TU chemistry professor and research project leader. Dikes were built in December to collect rainwater, which filters down to drainage pipes buried three feet underground. This salty leachate is being pumped into an existing saltwater disposal system. The topsoil was disked to increase permeability and hay will be spread on the site to keep the surface moist in the summer.
The system is being operated by Don Rainwater, pumper for E.W. Carter Oil Co., the leaseholder. TU students and professors will measure the salt in water samples collected by Rainwater.
In the spring, a portion of the site will be seeded with the salt-tolerant knotweed plant. The seeds were collected from "pioneer" plants existing on the site prior to construction of the drainage system. A fence will keep cattle and bison from eating the vegetation that will slowly colonize the site.
"We'll base our success on how well we slow or halt the salt contamination of a stock pond that receives runoff from the site and on the reduction of salinity of the contaminated soil," says Harris.
He says this novel approach could be used at other sites in oil-producing regions across the country because of its simplicity and low cost. Harris says petroleum reservoirs typically contain a mixture of hydrocarbons and salt water, and it is fairly common for the soil near production facilities to become contaminated with salt.
The TU project is one of several in the preserve funded by a $50,000 Department of Energy grant. The public preserve, located about eight miles north of Pawhuska, Okla., covers more than 37,000 acres. It was created by The Nature Conservancy in 1989 to recreate the prairie ecosystem using fire and bison.
The dikes, each about 200 feet in length, were constructed along four different contour intervals running adjacent to the buried drainage system, which was fashioned using four-inch diameter pipe. The black, polyethylene pipe is corrugated to permit bending during installation and slotted to allow infiltration of the leachate.
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Note: For more information, contact professor Harris by telephone at (918) 631-3090 or by e-mail at: [email protected]
Release written by Rolf Olsen, The University of Tulsa, Office of University Relations, 600 S. College Ave., Tulsa, Okla. 74104-3189
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