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Getting rid of drilling cuttings
Volumc 16/Number 11/1985
complete list it contains 93,000 substances which is approximately 95% of the total number. The European Commission will accept comments on individual items until 30 November 1985 so that any omission or errors in the draft can be notified. The inventory may be consulted by contacting Mrs R. Wasserberg, EINECS Contact Point, Health and Safety Executive, Baynards Home, 1 Chepstow Place, London W2 4TF, UK.
EPA Gets Tough The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing new regulations to govern the discharge of produced water, drilling fluids, drill cuttings, well fluids and sanitary wastes from all rigs and platforms operating in US Waters. According to the EPA, the regulations are based on treatment of the waste by 'Best Available Treatment' (BAT) technology. All new operations would be covered by the same requirements. In addition, 126 new oil developments expected to be located in shallower waters would be prohibited from discharging produced water altogether. Instead the water would have to be reinjected into deep wells. The new regulations, which also require all existing installations to control the amounts of oil and grease, mercury, cadmium, chlorine and floating solids, are the most stringent and expensive discharge regulations ever to be proposed. EPA estimates the cost of implementation would be $36 million annually for existing installations and an additional $56 million a year for the injection requirements for the new facilities. It is estimated that the reinjection of produced water would reduce toxic pollutant discharge to shallow US waters by an estimated 320 t yr -L and reduce oil discharge by 450 t yr -L.
Status of Water Quality in the US
40~000 people. Runoff from farms located on the Sound's tributaries contributes a large percentage of the coliform, nitrogen, and phosphorus loads of the areas waterways. The salmon fisheries are threatened by increased temperatures in the streams and rivers caused by the cutting of trees along the river banks and the widening of the waterways. EPA is calling for a 'change in lifestyle' that might include new land-use plans, zoning laws, forestry and farming practices, and septic tank ordinances. Similarly, Oregon, which led the US in controlling point sources of water and air pollution, is struggling with non-point sources primarily connected with its lumber industry. However, this state has already proved itself adept at clean-up of non-point source pollution. A coordinated effort was put into effect in 1977 to reduce a bacterial threat to oyster beds in Tilamook Bay caused by runoff from dairy farms. A similar programme is being conducted in Yaquima Bay to protect shellfish beds from bacterial contamination. These programmes emphasize public education and cooperation and keep regulation to a minimum.
Getting Rid of Drilling Cuttings One possible answer to the problem of accumulation of drilling cuttings on the sea bed below oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico has been suggested by Dr Cheng-Shan Fang of the University of Southwest Louisiana. At a meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in Houston Dr Fang outlined a process in which barge-mounted equipment and storage tanks are used to suck up the drilling cuttings from the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico. Shale shakers then separate the coarse solids, sand and silt from the water. The solid matter is then collected and stored for shipment onshore. The water, which may require further treatment to remove water soluble hydrocarbons, is then returned to the sea.
New Technology for Oily Water Clean-up
The US EPA sent the US Congress a report entitled "'National Water Quality Inventory, 1984 Report to Congress" on 4 August 1985. In that report, EPA found What to do with produced water (water that inevitably that only 82% of 13 million square miles of monitored comes up with the recovered oil from almost every US estuaries and coastal waters fully support their desigproduction platform world-wide) is a problem that has nated uses. In contrast, the report said that 78% of the always been with the oil industry. It is also one that 9.5 million acres of lakes and reservoirs and 73% of the . increases with the greater quantities of produced water 325 000 miles of rivers and streams that were assessed from ageing oil wells. by EPA fully supported their designated used. One major problem is that production water, although separated from the oil, still contains small droplets of hydrocarbons and so may not be simply discharged into the sea. Similar problems arise at oil terminals with tanker ballast water and at refineries with desalters and other processes. The US EPA is increasingly concerned that non-point sources are threatening the water quality and fishery According to a recent report in Offshore (September, resources of the US Pacific Northwest. The US Food and 1985) new devices are being developed simultaneously Drug Administration has been closing shellfish beds in in both Britain and Australia based on a passive hydroPuget Sound due to bacterial contamination, much of cyclone principle which resulted from research at the which originates from the canine population of Seattle. University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom. The two companies are B.W.N. Industries in The EPA Northwestern Regional Administrator said that the city's dogs contributed a bacterial load to Puget Melbourne, Australia, who have produced the Vortoil Sound equivalent to the raw sewage load of a city of system and Serck Baker in Gloucester, England, who
US Pacific N.W. Fisheries Threatened
429
complete list it contains 93,000 substances which is approximately 95% of the total number. The European Commission will accept comments on individual items until 30 November 1985 so that any omission or errors in the draft can be notified. The inventory may be consulted by contacting Mrs R. Wasserberg, EINECS Contact Point, Health and Safety Executive, Baynards Home, 1 Chepstow Place, London W2 4TF, UK.
EPA Gets Tough The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is proposing new regulations to govern the discharge of produced water, drilling fluids, drill cuttings, well fluids and sanitary wastes from all rigs and platforms operating in US Waters. According to the EPA, the regulations are based on treatment of the waste by 'Best Available Treatment' (BAT) technology. All new operations would be covered by the same requirements. In addition, 126 new oil developments expected to be located in shallower waters would be prohibited from discharging produced water altogether. Instead the water would have to be reinjected into deep wells. The new regulations, which also require all existing installations to control the amounts of oil and grease, mercury, cadmium, chlorine and floating solids, are the most stringent and expensive discharge regulations ever to be proposed. EPA estimates the cost of implementation would be $36 million annually for existing installations and an additional $56 million a year for the injection requirements for the new facilities. It is estimated that the reinjection of produced water would reduce toxic pollutant discharge to shallow US waters by an estimated 320 t yr -L and reduce oil discharge by 450 t yr -L.
Status of Water Quality in the US
40~000 people. Runoff from farms located on the Sound's tributaries contributes a large percentage of the coliform, nitrogen, and phosphorus loads of the areas waterways. The salmon fisheries are threatened by increased temperatures in the streams and rivers caused by the cutting of trees along the river banks and the widening of the waterways. EPA is calling for a 'change in lifestyle' that might include new land-use plans, zoning laws, forestry and farming practices, and septic tank ordinances. Similarly, Oregon, which led the US in controlling point sources of water and air pollution, is struggling with non-point sources primarily connected with its lumber industry. However, this state has already proved itself adept at clean-up of non-point source pollution. A coordinated effort was put into effect in 1977 to reduce a bacterial threat to oyster beds in Tilamook Bay caused by runoff from dairy farms. A similar programme is being conducted in Yaquima Bay to protect shellfish beds from bacterial contamination. These programmes emphasize public education and cooperation and keep regulation to a minimum.
Getting Rid of Drilling Cuttings One possible answer to the problem of accumulation of drilling cuttings on the sea bed below oil production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico has been suggested by Dr Cheng-Shan Fang of the University of Southwest Louisiana. At a meeting of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in Houston Dr Fang outlined a process in which barge-mounted equipment and storage tanks are used to suck up the drilling cuttings from the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico. Shale shakers then separate the coarse solids, sand and silt from the water. The solid matter is then collected and stored for shipment onshore. The water, which may require further treatment to remove water soluble hydrocarbons, is then returned to the sea.
New Technology for Oily Water Clean-up
The US EPA sent the US Congress a report entitled "'National Water Quality Inventory, 1984 Report to Congress" on 4 August 1985. In that report, EPA found What to do with produced water (water that inevitably that only 82% of 13 million square miles of monitored comes up with the recovered oil from almost every US estuaries and coastal waters fully support their desigproduction platform world-wide) is a problem that has nated uses. In contrast, the report said that 78% of the always been with the oil industry. It is also one that 9.5 million acres of lakes and reservoirs and 73% of the . increases with the greater quantities of produced water 325 000 miles of rivers and streams that were assessed from ageing oil wells. by EPA fully supported their designated used. One major problem is that production water, although separated from the oil, still contains small droplets of hydrocarbons and so may not be simply discharged into the sea. Similar problems arise at oil terminals with tanker ballast water and at refineries with desalters and other processes. The US EPA is increasingly concerned that non-point sources are threatening the water quality and fishery According to a recent report in Offshore (September, resources of the US Pacific Northwest. The US Food and 1985) new devices are being developed simultaneously Drug Administration has been closing shellfish beds in in both Britain and Australia based on a passive hydroPuget Sound due to bacterial contamination, much of cyclone principle which resulted from research at the which originates from the canine population of Seattle. University of Southampton, in the United Kingdom. The two companies are B.W.N. Industries in The EPA Northwestern Regional Administrator said that the city's dogs contributed a bacterial load to Puget Melbourne, Australia, who have produced the Vortoil Sound equivalent to the raw sewage load of a city of system and Serck Baker in Gloucester, England, who
US Pacific N.W. Fisheries Threatened
429