U.S. Water News Online
BISMARCK, N.D. -- State officials have not finished analyzing the environmental and legal questions involving oil well wastewater that the Transportation Department dumped for decades on North Dakota roads as a deicer. But officials say they expect to have some answers before the snow flies.
The state Transportation Department had been using the oil well wastewater that is 10 times saltier than sea water to melt ice and snow on North Dakota roads -- mostly in the Dickinson area -- since 1963. The practice was halted in February, after Health Department officials learned of it from The Associated Press.
Dennis Fewless, the Health Department's water quality director, said the agency has been studying the environmental effects of the wastewater for the last several months. He said the results of the study will be presented to the state's Industrial Commission in October.
Fewless would not give a preview of the agency's findings.
"We're dredging through the data," he said.
The Health Department is analyzing wastewater samples taken from 10 oil wells, Fewless said. Samples have been taken along roads in western and north central North Dakota near where the salty wastewater was used, he said.
Samples also are being analyzed alongside roads where the state has used rock salt, for a comparison, Fewless said.
The Health Department is trying to determine if the use of the briny wastewater on the roads tainted adjacent land and water supplies with hydrocarbons, heavy metals and other pollutants. The sampling was completed last month, Fewless said
"We're doing a full scan of anything that potentially could be a problem," he said.
Transportation officials have said that tens of thousands of gallons of the oil well wastewater have been used on North Dakota roads each year for at least four decades. Oil companies normally have to pay to dispose of it in underground wells, but they gave it to the state at no charge.
Transportation Department officials have said that the salty water works better than rock salt, and they don't believe it has caused any ill-effects.
Environmentalists worry about the affects on water supplies and wetlands, and they say the practice is probably illegal.
"It appears to be in violation, so we're opposed to that," said Linda Weiss, a spokeswoman for the Dakota Resource Council, a Dickinson-based environmental and landowner group.
State law requires, among other things, that waste associated with an oil well be disposed of in an authorized facility, and requires a permit to haul it.
The Chicago-based Environmental Law & Policy Center said the state could face civil penalties and could be sued by its citizens if the practice continues.
"We are awaiting the results of the state's testing," said Brad Klein, an attorney for the group. "I think the state rules require state permitting.
"This is something that flew under the radar screen of the state and demonstrates why you need some oversight," Klein said.
Tom Trenbeath, North Dakota's deputy attorney general, said state lawyers also are awaiting the report next month to the Industrial Commission, whose members are Gov. John Hoeven, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem and Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson.
"I guess there are many different levels of laws that could have been broken," Trenbeath said. "We certainly haven't concluded that yet."
Darcy Rosendahl, the Transportation Department's director of operations, said no determination has been made whether the salty wastewater will be dumped on North Dakota roads in the future.
"It all depends on what the Health Department's assessment shows," Rosendahl said. "If they say, 'Don't use it,' we won't. If it doesn't have any effects, we will have to assess whether we will continue."
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