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Fuck Kinder Morgan and The Permian Highway Pipeline


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Why do you hate our nation's energy heroes? Drill, baby, drill!

Seriously, we let drillers off the hook for environmental damage and remove regulation to prevent it in the name of money.

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16 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

Well that doesn’t seem good. Anything we can do now to stop them?  Petitions?  Monkey Wrench Gang?

http://wimberleywatershed.org/2020/04/08/sediment-impacts-in-wells-near-kinder-morgan-construction-site/

"According to David Baker, executive director of WVWA, “When Kinder Morgan announced the Permian Basin Highway back in 2018, I said it was the worst thing to ever happen to the Texas Hill Country and that even the construction would cause harm to our fragile karst aquifers. But this recent event and the discovery of cancer-­‐causing products flowing in to drinking water is beyond what I feared most. The residents and landowners in the path of this pipeline are not going to stand down; we will continue to fight tirelessly for our precious water supply. This legal action is essential for the very essence of what we hold dear.”

TESPA executive director, Patrick Cox, PhD, added, “All of us who depend on groundwater for our drinking water supply have been alarmed by the pipeline for almost two years now, but for this contamination incident to happen in the midst of the COVID-­‐19 pandemic and affect the only water we have to drink and bathe in — it is unconscionable. If there ever was a good time and reason to take legal action against a toxic polluter, it is now. And we have just the team to do it.” 

I believe the Sierra Club is also filing suit.

My understanding is they have a mandatory stoppage and 10 days to draw up a new plan, but that is expected to get rubber-stamped by the Railroad Commission.

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KVUE reached out to Kinder Morgan on April 2 about whether the pipeline's construction had anything to do with the brown water. The company sent the following statement:

"On Saturday, March 28, Permian Highway Pipeline (PHP) experienced an underground drilling fluid loss during construction in Blanco County, Texas. The drilling fluid is comprised of bentonite clay and water. Bentonite is a naturally occurring, non-hazardous, non-toxic clay. We strive for zero incidents and minimal environmental impact on all our construction projects. At this time, drilling operations have been suspended while the team evaluates the cause of the loss and determines the best path forward. We are working with affected landowners to address their needs. We are also consulting with our karst expert and the local water district manager to determine the best way to mitigate any current and future impacts. All of the appropriate regulatory agencies have been notified."

What the fuck does that gibberish mean?

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4 hours ago, Zombie said:

What the fuck does that gibberish mean?

As an expert in drilling fluids I can tell you for sure that a bentonite / water slurry is about as benign a fluid as you can get.  Think churning up the bottom of a river and mixing the dirt with the same river water.

Bentonite is clay.  Clay is fucking everywhere.  This drilling fluid is fucking clay mixed with water so don't lose your shit over it. 

Edited by Fudge Nuggets
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According to Kinder Morgan, the drilling experts who promised this wouldn't happen, only to immediately prove themselves wrong at the first available opportunity, it's just clay and water, rendering residents' primary source of water for drinking and bathing (during a pandemic) unusable. That in itself is worth losing one's shit over, though there are multiple other stand-alone shit-losing issues in addition.

- as mentioned, a private company seizing private land for the ultimate goal of foreign commercial export

- clear cutting a 200 ft wide swath in an area already susceptible to oak wilt, increasing the likelihood

-  influx of non-resident workers already being documented congregating in groups, working closely together during pandemic

However, that's one of the aspects of the suit- that Kinder Morgan, the drilling experts, failed to mention that there's actually more substances involved in the drilling process than strictly clay and water-

"Of primary concern, and contrary to public comments by Kinder Morgan, the Notice Letter identifies a class 1A carcinogen on the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the drilling mud that contaminated the aquifer and the water supply of area homeowners."

I'm no expert (though KM has devalued that title) but my understanding is that this refers to the lubrication used in the drilling equipment itself. 

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I'm confused. They are calling this a pipeline. Why are they drilling wells? This wasn't intended to transport from Point A to Point B? Are they going to drill feeder wells along the route?

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2 hours ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

According to Kinder Morgan, the drilling experts who promised this wouldn't happen, only to immediately prove themselves wrong at the first available opportunity, it's just clay and water, rendering residents' primary source of water for drinking and bathing (during a pandemic) unusable. That in itself is worth losing one's shit over, though there are multiple other stand-alone shit-losing issues in addition.

- as mentioned, a private company seizing private land for the ultimate goal of foreign commercial export

- clear cutting a 200 ft wide swath in an area already susceptible to oak wilt, increasing the likelihood

-  influx of non-resident workers already being documented congregating in groups, working closely together during pandemic

However, that's one of the aspects of the suit- that Kinder Morgan, the drilling experts, failed to mention that there's actually more substances involved in the drilling process than strictly clay and water-

"Of primary concern, and contrary to public comments by Kinder Morgan, the Notice Letter identifies a class 1A carcinogen on the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) for the drilling mud that contaminated the aquifer and the water supply of area homeowners."

I'm no expert (though KM has devalued that title) but my understanding is that this refers to the lubrication used in the drilling equipment itself. 

I'm not sure what kind of drilling they're doing or what they're doing it with, but assuming it's small diameter wellbores using a rolling-cone bit, there's an ounce or two of grease in the bit.  The grease probably does contain some nasty stuff.  The grease only escapes the bit at bit failure (other than trace amounts), which is highly unlikely at depths under 1000 feet.

If it is true that they drilled into the aquifer, thus loosing the drilling mud into the aquifer, it's just dirty water, with the "dirt" being about as clean a dirt as you could want.

It is possible that they were using some kind of large-diameter bit or boring machine, which might "contain" more grease.  But those aren't usually used with drilling mud.

Still not optimal or reassuring.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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33 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

When I lose my job in oil and gas it appears I can have a lucrative career as an expert witness in these types of lawsuits.  Time to capitalize on the stupidity of the general public instead of being angry about the stupidity of the general public. 

Explain

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18 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Yes because nothing screams ‘murica more than making another few bucks off “dumbasses” who think drinking mud out of their tap is bad.  The nerve of them!  

Damn right.   About the only other thing more ‘murcia is frivolous litigation.  You have a water well, those things get dirty every now and then.

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Technically speaking, they're going under the Blanco River here.  I'm going to assume that they are blasting a small tunnel some nine feet under the bottom, so well under 50 feet from the surface, maybe 100 at the extreme.

They were probably drilling blast holes.  The only reason you would use drilling mud in such a shallow operation is if you expect to encounter fluid (water or gas, or oil for that matter) in the borehole while drilling.  Normally, the weight of the column of drilling fluid counterbalances the pressure from the fluid in the formation/borehole, keeping the fluid from rushing to the surface or the drilling fluid from flooding into whatever formation is encountered.

It would seem that they encountered some kind of empty cavity that let the drilling fluid into the formation (36,000 gallons sounds like a shitload for a shallow operation and is probably wrong**).  The drilling fluid then seeped into the aquifer, clouding up the water.

The question is why they didn't use a geological survey (seismic or other) to figure out what they were drilling into.

It's an inconvenience, not a major environmental disaster.  Not to minimize the inconvenience.

**36,000 gallons may have been the total volume of circulating fluid, but is nowhere near the amount in the borehole at any given time subject to flooding into the formation.

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5 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

FN works in a highly-specialized but well-compensated industry one of whose main drawbacks  -- to those working in that industry, at least -- is that due to the whims of the market and technical innovations, it periodically sheds itself of roughly half its workforce. This renders years of technical education and arduous decades of experience useless, and so FN fears that he too will soon be out of work and will this be unable to make as much money as he once did.

And so he hopes that he -- who chose to work in this industry knowing full well that downturns mean waves of job losses -- can continue raking in fat cash by condescending to simpletons like us about how should have nothing to fear from mud and teeny-tiny quantities of class A carcinogens into hitherto-pristine drinking water.

After all, even if we are a history teacher, a banker, a dentist, a bartender, a truck driver, a cop, a lawyer, or a ditch-digger, we should all be fully up to speed on all mechanical and technical process in the oil patch, from exploration to drilling to well operations to pipelines and shipping are just stupid members of the general public if we don't.

I wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors. 

Much appreciated.  I feel confident that my future career in bullshit litigation will be much more stable than the oil and gas industry.  I wish I had thought of this earlier.

And to be fair, I’ll tweak numbers to help the plaintiffs if they pay more than the defense.  Makes no shit to me which side I testify for so long as the check clears.

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1 minute ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Much appreciated.  I feel confident that my future career in bullshit litigation will be much more stable than the oil and gas industry.  I wish I had thought of this earlier.

And to be fair, I’ll tweak numbers to help the plaintiffs if they pay more than the defense.  Makes no shit to me which side I testify for so long as the check clears.

So, could the mud clog the aquifer?

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The video mentioned a 42” pipeline which equates to 1.7 bbl (71 gal) per ft of hole drilled.  Bentonite slurry is not used to counteract wellbore pressure.  This type of fluid is used to get the dirt out of the hole and “slick” up the wellbore so the drill string doesn’t get stuck.

Typically a smaller hole is drilled first 8.5 inches or so?  It’s been a while since I worked in the river crossing business.  But after that a hole opener is run in front of the pipeline itself to enlarge the hole to its final size.

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So, uh, what is our resident expert witness testifying to at this point? That KM’s “underground drilling fluid loss” is not responsible for the residents’ water turning into sludge? Or that they are responsible, but those idiots should just stop bitching that they don’t have drinking water during a pandemic because the sludge coming out of their taps is non-toxic?

 

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19 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

So, uh, what is our resident expert witness testifying to at this point? That KM’s “underground drilling fluid loss” is not responsible for the residents’ water turning into sludge? Or that they are responsible, but those idiots should just stop bitching that they don’t have drinking water during a pandemic because the sludge coming out of their taps is non-toxic?

 

Cloudy water, like smog, means jobs. You can't expect KM to be responsible for trivial externalities. Buncha ingrates. 

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58 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

The video mentioned a 42” pipeline which equates to 1.7 bbl (71 gal) per ft of hole drilled.  Bentonite slurry is not used to counteract wellbore pressure.  This type of fluid is used to get the dirt out of the hole and “slick” up the wellbore so the drill string doesn’t get stuck.

Typically a smaller hole is drilled first 8.5 inches or so?  It’s been a while since I worked in the river crossing business.  But after that a hole opener is run in front of the pipeline itself to enlarge the hole to its final size.

I was assuming blasting a tunnel rather than a boring machine, and that the hole in question was a pilot or blast hole, so I defer to your expertise.

I would have guessed air drilling for something like this, also.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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46 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotHollywoodColt said:

So, uh, what is our resident expert witness testifying to at this point? That KM’s “underground drilling fluid loss” is not responsible for the residents’ water turning into sludge? Or that they are responsible, but those idiots should just stop bitching that they don’t have drinking water during a pandemic because the sludge coming out of their taps is non-toxic?

 

Yes.  Run your taps and it will clear up on its own.  It’s an inconvenience for sure but not some earth shattering environmental disaster.      This happens with well water every now and then.  So unless this aquifer is only as big as a few swimming pools it’s going to dilute itself out pretty quick.

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DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT SLUDGE IN YOUR WATER TASTES LIKE?  THAT'S FREEDOM YOU'RE TASTING MOTHERFUCKERS!  WHEN YOU'RE BEING TREATED FOR THE CANCER YOU GOT FROM THOSE CARCINOGENS, JUST SIT THERE DURING YOUR CHEMO SESSIONS AND THINK "GODDAMN, AT LEAST THE MARKETS ARE FUNCTIONING EFFICIENTLY!!!"  

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They claimed to have used GPR as the survey prior to drilling. I would have to see the results to see if they missed something and to see what frequency they were surveying at to understand what went wrong. GPR is very fast, and a powerful technique and it has clear limitations. It is also easy to screw up like any geophysical tool.

I saw a bunch of Stanford geos use it (they were seismologists) and they fucked it up by bringing the wrong frequency antennae.

My office mate fucked her project up by not adjusting the recording parameters and ended up screwing her project up.

I fucking loved using GPR because of the instant gratification. I could stack my data 8x without changing my pace.

Also drill mud is used to be both a lubricant and to prevent fluid loss and to prevent blowouts by maintaining hydrostatic pressure.

Their plan to laterally drill across an aquifer seems rather foolish and risky. A surface expression or trenched pipeline would be easier to construct and monitor. Trench it, layer it with impermeable barriers, drop in some course grained well sorted material and a pipe then bury it. French drain+.

Were they planning in cementing the pipe in place as well? How were they planning on dealing with gaps in the cement as recorded by a cbl? How long was it expected to last?

Clowns.

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Well that doesn’t seem good. Anything we can do now to stop them?  Petitions?  Monkey Wrench Gang?

Intrastate pipeline projects can use eminent domain without any sort of public oversight. Feds don't get involved when it doesn't cross state lines. The only answer is voting out the RRC and state legislators that are complicit in O&G's looting.
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3 hours ago, Nivek said:

They claimed to have used GPR as the survey prior to drilling. I would have to see the results to see if they missed something and to see what frequency they were surveying at to understand what went wrong. GPR is very fast, and a powerful technique and it has clear limitations. It is also easy to screw up like any geophysical tool.

I saw a bunch of Stanford geos use it (they were seismologists) and they fucked it up by bringing the wrong frequency antennae.

My office mate fucked her project up by not adjusting the recording parameters and ended up screwing her project up.

I fucking loved using GPR because of the instant gratification. I could stack my data 8x without changing my pace.

Also drill mud is used to be both a lubricant and to prevent fluid loss and to prevent blowouts by maintaining hydrostatic pressure.

Their plan to laterally drill across an aquifer seems rather foolish and risky. A surface expression or trenched pipeline would be easier to construct and monitor. Trench it, layer it with impermeable barriers, drop in some course grained well sorted material and a pipe then bury it. French drain+.

Were they planning in cementing the pipe in place as well? How were they planning on dealing with gaps in the cement as recorded by a cbl? How long was it expected to last?

Clowns.

Fudge Nuggets is more right than I was about bentonite mud.  As the original drilling mud, it's no longer the choice for pressure control, particularly for deep wells.  But at one time it was the only choice and might be ok for not-very-deep boreholes.  And it wouldn't serve much pressure control function in a near-horizontal tunnel, anyway.

If it was in fact tunnel boring and not a straight, shallow, vertical blast or pilot hole, then I'm sure he's entirely correct.  And given some of the other information, tunnel boring makes sense.

Most of the pipeline is trenched, I understand, but the crossing under the Blanco was a different operation.  Going over would probably make more sense, but I imagine they chose to go under because of landowners.

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Bentonite is a viscosifier and not very dense - by the time you added enough bentonite to get any significant fluid density the slurry would be too thick to pump.  Barite is the mineral used for density most of the time but is not required in these type holes.  They aren’t drilling deep enough to hit any pressure.  I think these things are 10 to 50 ft below surface.

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8 hours ago, Nivek said:

Were they planning in cementing the pipe in place as well? How were they planning on dealing with gaps in the cement as recorded by a cbl? How long was it expected to last?

They don’t cement these things, it’s a pipeline not casing.  The pipe may have special anti-corrosion coating or they may plan to use cathodic protection.

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All I know is I went to a Blanco meeting re: addition to a shop & probably less than ⅓ mile from where I crossed the Blanco River,there was an off duty DPS officer (in his personal vehicle) hanging out by the pipeline.

I asked if this was the spot where the Karst had been blown open & he said he didn't know about any of that but, was there "to stop anyone from setting another fire & damaging more equipment".

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk

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2 hours ago, ROFL BOX said:

All I know is I went to a Blanco meeting re: addition to a shop & probably less than ⅓ mile from where I crossed the Blanco River,there was an off duty DPS officer (in his personal vehicle) hanging out by the pipeline.

I asked if this was the spot where the Karst had been blown open & he said he didn't know about any of that but, was there "to stop anyone from setting another fire & damaging more equipment".

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk
 

Are you referring to the vehicles parked off 165 and Cox with the generic POLICE mag signs on their doors?

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21 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Damn right.   About the only other thing more ‘murcia is frivolous litigation.  You have a water well, those things get dirty every now and then.

My well has never gotten dirty in the 17 years I've lived here. Usually when my company has to make water deliveries to small developments due to a dirty well it's due to a natural occurrence like floodwaters running over a well head, and even it doesn't look like chocolate milk.

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They don’t cement these things, it’s a pipeline not casing.  The pipe may have special anti-corrosion coating or they may plan to use cathodic protection.

Thank you. What kind of coating would they use? How to they prevent it from getting scraped off when setting the pipe and exposing the pipe to corrosion?
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You don't want to drink it because it's dirty as hell.  Not many people want to drink out of mud puddles in their yard either but doesn't mean it's toxic.

KM fucked up and it's a huge inconvenience to these people so the company should do something to make it right.  But the residents aren't going to drop dead of cancer or have babies born with three arms because of this.

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Kind of funny, a lot of the press surrounding the pipeline takes great pains to mention that it will carry "fracked gas," as if that is somehow more toxic or evil than non-fracked natural gas.

I am pretty sympathetic to most conservation causes, but some of it is ridiculous.

This sucks and it's stupid on KM's part, but it's not Woburn, MA or Three Mile Island.

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18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Kind of funny, a lot of the press surrounding the pipeline takes great pains to mention that it will carry "fracked gas," as if that is somehow more toxic or evil than non-fracked natural gas.

I am pretty sympathetic to most conservation causes, but some of it is ridiculous.

This sucks and it's stupid on KM's part, but it's not Woburn, MA or Three Mile Island.

I think the larger point to be made is when they come into a community and say “you have nothing to worry about” then they do something incredibly stupid right off the bat, you realize they’re full of shit and you absolutely should be worried.

I’m an angler and the hot button issue right now is the Pebble Mine in AK at the headwaters of the most productive salmon fishery in the world. Should we trust them when they say there’s no chance of an environmental disaster that could destroy that natural resource? The answer is fuck no, IMO.

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I think the larger point to be made is when they come into a community and say “you have nothing to worry about” then they do something incredibly stupid right off the bat, you realize they’re full of shit and you absolutely should be worried.
I’m an angler and the hot button issue right now is the Pebble Mine in AK at the headwaters of the most productive salmon fishery in the world. Should we trust them when they say there’s no chance of an environmental disaster that could destroy that natural resource? The answer is fuck no, IMO.
Right.

It's a matter of peace of mind that was taken away once the project was announced that's now been amplified by ten, and we're only in the construction phase. This area is filled with sinkholes and shifting ground. I had an addition added to my little fix-me-up out here in 2012 and I've already had to use the foundation warranty. Here's the waterline that runs from the well to my house, bowed completely out of the ground. 0e2e76892b0ec5183e2f1d02d72e7ed3.jpg
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3 hours ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

You don't want to drink it because it's dirty as hell.  Not many people want to drink out of mud puddles in their yard either but doesn't mean it's toxic.

KM fucked up and it's a huge inconvenience to these people so the company should do something to make it right.  But the residents aren't going to drop dead of cancer or have babies born with three arms because of this.

Who are they supposed to believe that it's safe to drink? there's a long history of corps and govts lying to people or downplaying any risk. And then it's discovered 20 years later they knew there was a problem but decided against telling anyone.

They were told this situation wasn't going to happen, until it did. Then they're told the water is safe. Was the expert only wrong with their first opinion or wrong with both?

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1 hour ago, ROFL BOX said:

 

No magnetic on the doors, however I think it was a black Charger.0da1c2e7addadb98b47bc0224b651373.jpg

Sent from my SM-G950U1 using Tapatalk
 

Yeah, that's just around the bend from where I've seen the generic POLICE. Only other time I've seen them they were escorting a couple of oversized loads hauling pipe at 281 and 32.

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