Environmental Corner

Safety Manual Available

The Ohio Oil and Gas Association is making a "Safety Manual," which should serve as a generic guideline to meeting OSHA guidelines, available to industry. Contents include health and safety guidelines, hazard communications, bloodborne pathogens, lock-out/tag-out, confined space, machine guarding, and derrick stability (guy wire anchoring systems and sling safety). For $100 ($50 for Ohio Oil and Gas Association members), one gets a hard-copy notebook plus disk.

Order from Ohio Oil and Gas Association, P.O. Box 535, Granville, OH 43023-0535 (or contact them at 740-587-0444 for more information).

Remediation of Salt- and Oil-Impacted Soils

The Great Plains/Rocky Mountain Hazardous Substance Research Center led by Kansas State University has diverse interests, but one focus area is the remediation of salt- and oil-impacted soils. With remediation the goals are to remove or utilize salts and decompose oil into soil. General remediation alternatives include biotic (natural forces or salt-tolerant plants), in-situ chemical amendments (ion exchange, typically using gypsum, sulfur or calcium nitrate to displace sodium, followed by water to leach salts), and mechanical (excavation for burial/encapsulation, land treatment, or enhancement or offsite disposal or bioremediation).

Critical spill variables are the quantity and concentration of salts spilled, the volume of oil spilled, and where the spill occurred. Critical site variables include the extent of the spill, climate, physical and chemical nature of the soil, groundwater, landscape, vegetation, and land use. Soil data available from public sources help one to plan appropriate remediation steps, as does soil sampling of impacted and background (unaffected) areas.

Re-vegetation is part of most remediation solutions. Selected plant species should consider the climate, available water, and salinity tolerance, as well as regional experience. In choosing vegetation, know the difference between halophytes or salt-tolerant plants (bermudagrass, cotton, barley, tall wheatgrass) and euhalophytes or true salt-loving plants (saltbush, saltgrass, saltwort) that require salinity. Basic steps in re-vegetation include preparing the soil, adding fertilizer and chemical amendments, and mulching.

When chemically remediating, assure that salts will leach into and remain at appropriate soil depths (at least 6 ft). Chemical amendments must be top dressed into soil. Only then should fresh water be applied to leach salts to acceptable depths below the root zones of plants. For leaching, soils must have adequate soil internal drainage. Mechanical remediation, which is usually most costly, can be either onsite (in berms, lease roads-but can create different problems) or offsite disposal/treatment (the most expensive option).

Excerpted from presentation at KIOGA annual meeting, Aug. 20 in Wichita, Kansas. For more information, contact Blasé Leven at Kansas State University (phone 785-532-0780 or email baleven@ksu.edu).

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