Oil & Gas

DNR RELEASES FIRST DATA ON INTERNET ON SAMPLES TAKEN FROM OILFIELD WASTE

BATON ROUGE – The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) will make available on the Internet today the first raw data gathered on samples taken of oilfield waste from throughout the state.

According to DNR Secretary Jack Caldwell, the department began testing on May 1 and will continue taking samples for months to come as ordered by Governor Mike Foster. "The testing is the first of its type to be done by the state," Caldwell said. "This raw data will be studied so we can draw conclusions and set levels on certain constituents found in the waste. Any targeted constituents found to exceed the levels set will require special treatment.

"The number of samples taken so far is too small for any conclusions to be reached. We're just in the gathering stage right now, but we want to make all the data available to the public as we receive it," Caldwell said.

According to Caldwell, the samples are grouped into 16 different types of waste, including salt water, oil and water base mud, completion fluids, production pit sludge, production tank sludge, produced sand and solids, rainwater from ring levees and pits, washout water, washout pits water, and crude oil spill clean-up waste.

Each batch will be tested, using three procedures to analyze constituents in the waste that include oil and gas, reactive sulfide, benzene, ethyl benzene, toluene, arsenic, barium, cadmium, chromium, lead, mercury, selenium and silver.

The data can be found on the Internet at dnr.state.la.us and is offered in two formats, Microsoft Excel and Adobe Acrobat PDF.

Editors: For more information, call Sidney Coffee, DNR Director of Communications, at 504-342-4844.