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Cook Inlet Pollution Exception Protested: REPORT: EPA May Permit Oil, Gas Platform Discharges to Increase Threefold.

Posted on: Thursday, 1 June 2006, 21:00 CDT

By Paula Dobbyn, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Jun. 1--The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should stop allowing oil and gas operators to discharge toxic liquids and drilling wastes into Cook Inlet because there's no economic or technological justification for the dumping, according to a new report.

The EPA bars such discharges everywhere else in the country except Cook Inlet, home of commercial and sport fishing industries as well as oil and gas.

The federal agency is preparing a pollution permit covering some 15 offshore oil and gas platforms in Cook Inlet. It's expected to be issued by the end of the summer or early fall, said Hanh Shaw, EPA project manager.

According to a report issued this week by environmental watchdog Cook Inletkeeper, the EPA proposed in a draft permit to allow a threefold increase in the volume of oil and grease discharges.

The oil and grease is contained in water that comes up wells with the oil and gas. This water -- 1.7 billion gallons last year, according to Cook Inletkeeper -- contains hydrocarbons and heavy metals, which can be harmful to human health and aquatic life in certain concentrations.

Under the EPA draft permit, operators could increase their discharges of oil and grease within the produced water from the 32,000 gallons released in 2005 to more than 100,000 gallons, according to Cook Inletkeeper.

Similarly, the draft permit would allow operators to discharge nearly 887,000 pounds of mercury, nickel, copper, manganese and zinc into Cook Inlet. That's a dramatic jump over current levels. Last year, the industry discharged 50,000 pounds of zinc, 442 pounds of arsenic and lesser amounts of other heavy metals into the inlet, according to the report.

The EPA wants to allow more dumping because as Cook Inlet platforms age, they pump up more and more water from the reservoirs, Shaw said. Hence, more produced water and drilling waste are created while oil is extracted. Cook Inlet also has tremendous tides that can help dilute waste.

As for why Cook Inlet operators are exempt from the zero-discharge policy that applies everywhere else in the country, Shaw said that's a decision EPA made many years ago.

"Their rationale, as I understand it, it's due to the cost, the high cost required to reinject the waste back into the formation," Shaw said.

The underwater geology of Cook Inlet is also such that it's not always able to accept the reinjected waste, she added.

The way operators elsewhere in the country typically achieve zero discharge is by sending the contaminated water and wastes into reinjection wells.

Lois Epstein, a civil engineer and author of the report, said Shaw is mistaken.

In her 33-page analysis, which took three years to complete, Epstein found that reinjection is not only possible but cost-effective for a variety of reasons. For one thing, oil prices have skyrocketed since the mid-1990s when the EPA exempted Cook Inlet from the zero-discharge policy.

Also, technological advances have been made in waste management practices that resolve some of the problems previously cited in Cook Inlet, she said.

Shaw said she hadn't studied the report in detail but said some of the concerns raised seem to warrant attention.

"We haven't done a full economic analysis and it seems to me like we probably need to look into that more fully," Shaw said.

The Alaska Oil and Gas Association opposes a zero-discharge policy for Cook Inlet. The association's deputy director noted that the draft permit includes new requirements for increased monitoring and other steps to protect the Cook Inlet ecosystem.

As long as there is no impact to the environment and the discharges are in compliance with state water-quality standards, "we don't believe a zero discharge is necessary," said Marilyn Crockett, AOGA deputy director.

The public comment period on the permit closed on Wednesday.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Anchorage Daily News, Alaska

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Anchorage Daily News

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