An Ignacio company that disposes of produced water from natural-gas and oil wells faces an $89,000 fine for multiple violations of the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday it fined Maralex Disposal for several violations related to a commercial brine disposal injection well in southern La Plata County.
The company failed to maintain the mechanical integrity of the well, failed to take weekly pressure readings and inaccurately reported pressure readings on the well. The well, near County Road 310 southeast of Bondad, injects production water from natural-gas and oil wells in the area into underground formations about 8,000 feet below the surface. The more than 60,000 barrels of produced waste injected into the well each month are laced with high concentrations of saline-produced water, benzene, tolouene, ethylbenzene and xylene, according to court documents from an October 2012 hearing about the violations.
The EPA has jurisdiction over the well because it is within the exterior boundaries of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe reservation. Phone calls made to Southern Ute environmental officials were not returned.
EPA inspectors first visited the injection well in May 2010 to find higher-than-normal pressure readings that indicated a potential leak in the system. Inspectors issued a Notice of Violation and instructed the company to submit a work plan to fix the well. The company wrote a letter to the EPA indicating it would perform the required work, but in an April 2011 inspection, EPA officials found the repairs had not been done. The EPA issued a second notice of violation and ordered the well to stop operations.
The disposal well passes through several underground drinking-water sources that are in current use by seven public water systems and numerous private wells, according to hearing documents. The well is 1½ miles from the closest drinking well, the documents said. A leak in the casing, tubing or packer – the layers surrounding the well bore – could contaminate those drinking-water sources, though at the hearing, the EPA did not provide evidence that the well had leaked any fluid. As of Monday evening, EPA environmental scientist Sarah Roberts said she didn’t know whether the agency had plans to conduct further groundwater testing.
Maralex Disposal also owns an evaporation pit in La Plata County, but the pit has no state-issued permit to operate. The pit, which has been empty for several years, failed two recent inspections by the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and has been ordered closed under state rules, according to the commission’s website.
The EPA issued Maralex an underground injection-control permit for the disposal well in 2006. The company has received four previous violations for a late mechanical integrity test and late submission of reports, Roberts said. Since the two most recent violations, the company completed repairs and conducted a successful mechanical integrity test in May 2011. The EPA has since authorized the company to resume injection into the well.
ecowan@durangoherald.com
