Oil and gas operators prepare for rising Atchafalaya water

23rd May 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Susan Buchanan
Contributing Writer

Oil and gas companies active in the Atchafalaya Basin are emptying pipe­lines and tying down anything that moves after the recent opening of the Morganza Spillway for the first time in nearly 40 years. A newly built levee at a Krotz Springs refinery in the upper part of the basin could protect the plant and its neighbors. But residents of the basin, which hosts a network of pipelines and extends down to Morgan City, hope they won’t have to contend with oil and byproducts within the floodwater.

Anna Dearmon, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources, said more than 500 oil and gas wells are producing in the Atchafalaya Basin and nearby areas vulnerable to flooding, along with one refinery in Krotz Springs and a network of pipelines operated by about twenty companies.

Located 37 miles northwest of Baton Rouge, Krotz Springs is home to an Alon U.S.A. Energy refinery that can process up to 83,000 barrels of oil per day.

Blake Lewis, Alon spokesman, said the company finished building an auxiliary levee last Wednesday. “The levee is roughly a mile long in areas around the refinery where there was a potential for incursion of backwater from downriver flooding,” he said. “The new levee serves additional areas of the facility not protected by the existing permanent, public levee that sits between the refinery and the Atchafalaya River.”

The town of Krotz Springs, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Louisiana National Guard, the state Dept. of Transportation and Deve­lopment and Alon employees all helped build the second levee. Alon paid for much of the work, particularly the section near the refinery, but total costs will be shared with the authorities, Lewis said.

He said 250 families living in the south part of Krotz Springs stand to benefit from the additional protection. The town and the refinery remained below flood level late last week, however.

Dearmon said “state Commis­sioner of Conservation Jim Welsh issued an emergency order with precautionary measures on May 13 to operators in the Atchafalaya Basin and the area of potential inundation.” Under state Dept. of Natural Resources regulations, “oil and gas wells capable of flowing — that are located in areas which are inaccessible during periods of storm and/or floods, including spillways — must be equipped with storm chokes to prevent blowouts or uncontrolled flow in the case of damage to surface equipment,” she said. A storm choke is a valve that closes when the flow from a well exceeds a determined limit.

The state’s Office of Conser­vation asked oil and gas operators through conference calls and emails this month to make sure that they’re taking precautions following the Morganza’s opening, Dearmon said. Operators responded that their preparations were similar to those for a hurricane.” Examples include emptying tanks of as much oil and condensate as possible and filling tanks with water; removing or securing loose items, equipment and chemicals; marking wells that may become submerged; and closing wellhead valves,” she said.

The industry learned how to protect its assets the hard way from a string of storms in the last decade. Don Briggs, president of the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association, said “with Katrina, Rita and other hurricanes, oil and gas companies gained a great deal of experience preparing for flooding. In the Atchafalaya Basin, they’re battening down now, fastening loose equipment and barges so they don’t do damage, and they’re purging pipelines and flushing them with water.”

He continued, saying “where water is expected to rise by five feet or more, companies are putting additional oil in tanks so they won’t float.” But he added “this month’s flood waters shouldn’t be as damaging as they are during a hurricane, when you have waves and washing that move things around.”

Exxon operates pipelines that cross the Atchafalaya Basin. “Due to flooding concerns in Louisiana, ExxonMobil Pipeline Company has taken precautionary measures to help ensure public safety and reduce any risk of potential damage to the environment,” said Patty Errico, spokeswoman for ExxonMobil Pipeline or EMPCo in Houston. When asked about the Atchafalaya, she confined her comments to points near Baton Rouge, outside of the basin, and said “ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. shut down two, 12-inch crude pipelines and one 16-inch pipeline on May 13. These segments are parts of the North Line System north of Baton Rouge and the Southwest Line west of Anchorage” in West Baton Rouge Parish.

She continued, saying “we purged oil from these systems and backfilled with fresh water in areas that may be affected by high water, and we ceased deliveries to destinations on the lines north and west of
Anchorage. These systems will remain shut down until water levels subside and EMPCo is able to safely inspect and verify the integrity of the pipelines.” Normal activity continued last week at other EMPCo operations in Louisiana, she said, and added that the company was monitoring the situation.

Exxon’s two refineries in Louisiana are outside the Atchafalaya Basin and located on the Mississippi River. The company’s giant Baton Rouge refinery and petrochemical complex had to shut its docks recently because of the rising Mississippi, said Kevin Allexon, downstream spokesman for ExxonMobil in Houston. “However, the complex itself continues to operate and produce because it’s supplied both by water and pipeline.” And the company’s joint-venture refinery in Chalmette is expected to remain fully operational during high water, he said.

Mickey Driver, Houston-based spokesman for Chevron U.S.A., Inc., said last week that none of its pipelines or other operations have been impacted by flooding, and added that the company continues to check with local operations about what is anticipated.

At Louisiana State University, Ed Overton, emeritus professor of coastal sciences, evaluated flood threats, and said “major pipelines have pressure-sensitive sensors that can quickly detect a break or leak and allow the pipeline to be shut off.” Small, connector-type pipelines don’t have that layer of protection, however. “The major pipelines are buried so they shouldn’t be much of a problem,” he said, and added “production wells will be shut in during the flooding.”

Nonetheless, a buried pipeline can become “scoured out” and exposed to the river’s flow, Overton said.

He recalled a past incident, without citing its date, in which a pipeline crossing the Atchafalaya lost its protection in flooding. But, he said, “fortunately, nothing happened to break that pipeline.”

And Overton said “because of all the product flow through the Atchafalaya Basin, I’m certain that it will be watched daily for possible leaks so that a potential, damaged pipeline could be shut off quickly.”

In addition to oil, gas and petrochemicals, the Atchafalaya Basin supports commercial fisheries, navigation, forestry and other interests that are sometimes in conflict with energy production.

Mike Bienvenu, president of the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association in Catahoula in St. Martin Parish in the Atchafalaya Basin, said “oil and gas companies built east-to-west canals and left their dug-out sediment up on banks, interrupting the north-south flow of the Atchafalaya and depriving the coast of sediment.”

He said “the Army Corps gave out permits to oil and gas companies for these canals, and many of them have violated their permits. They’re supposed to put pipelines below natural ground but often don’t do that.” And under the law, companies are not allowed to leave sediment behind on banks.

He said “they have even put pipelines in the banks that contain the sediment!” And he worried that “one possible threat in the current flooding situation is that pipelines in those banks might be uncovered.”

Bienvenu continued, saying “we also have old, abandoned pipes and other trash that oil and gas companies left behind.” He said “abandoned wells and flowlines are leaking, so that we’ve got leaks all over the Atchafalaya Basin.”

He believes that the basin needs oil and gas for economic survival but feels those companies should treat the environment with respect. “We’ve been fighting the oil and gas companies to get something done about their violations for twenty years, and our association has a number of lawsuits against them,” he said.

Bienvenu pointed to the toll that oil and gas canals have taken on habitat. “Water gets trapped behind these banks, it cooks and has no oxygen. Much of the time the crawfish are dead from no oxygen.” Wild crawfish production in the Atchafalaya Basin is a 20-million-pound-a-year industry or more now, but that’s down from 40 million to 60 million pounds a few decades ago when the oil and gas industry was less active.

“We used to catch crawfish from November to July, and now it’s an eight-week season from spring to early summer if we’re lucky,” Bienvenu said.

“Water with no oxygen doesn’t mix with fresh water,” he said. “The whole Atchafalaya Basin is now a big dead zone at one time or another in the summer, and that no-oxygen water ends up in Vermilion Bay, hurting shrimp, crab, speckled trout and everything else.”

However, as the water rises and overtops canal banks this month, crawfish are more plentiful than before the flood, he said.

At the moment, authorities are scrambling to protect the Atchafalaya Basin, Bienvenu also said. But he added that “the families in Krotz Springs are lucky to have that refinery in their town because the government wouldn’t rush to build a levee like that for regular people.”

Meanwhile, at the lower end of the Atchafalaya, Lorrie Braus, Chief Administrative Officer of Morgan City, said “most of the businesses on the unprotected side of our city’s seawall are oil and gas service businesses. Many of them spent substantial resources recently to build limestone levees around their facilities to try to protect to the river’s crest level.” That effort was completed in mid-May, and vulnerable businesses have now moved away from the seawall temporarily. Morgan City is already above flood stage, with the river expected to crest there late this month.

Without the Army Corps’ system of spillways and levees, the Mississippi River might have changed course years ago and adopted the Atchafalaya as the most direct route to the Gulf, circumventing Baton Rouge and New Orleans, according to hydrologists.

This article was originally published in the May 23, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper