Green conscience: out with toxic cocktails, in with products and services to protect land, water, air

The growing environmental consciousness, the threat of litigation and the realization that it costs less to do oil field work properly from the start than to fix mistakes later at astronomical costs, has speeded up the development of environmentally sound practices in the oil and gas industry. Environmentally 'neutral' drilling muds, cleaner flaring of 'solution' gas associated with oil, reseeding disturbed land with native grasses, and other previously uncommon practices witnessed in recent times add up to a significantly improved environmental performance of the oil and natural gas industry, a veritable 'greening' of the oil patch. Attitudes have changed from 'how do we clean up a spill when it happens' to 'how do we prevent a spill from happening'. The fear of litigation is still present, especially as a result of the new Environmental Protection Enhancement Act, but industry insiders claim that the transition to environmental consciousness began even before the Act came into being. Companies recognized that it it makes good business and economic sense to be environmentally responsible. The evolution of this new spirit of environmental awareness, and examples of the changes it has wrought in the composition of drilling muds, in drastically reducing the toxic substances and the visual and noise pollution problems of solution gas flaring, and in cleaning up land surface disturbances are described. Other major changes such as spraying topsoil piles with a neutral latex product to keep it from blowing away, steam cleaning all heavy equipment before each move to ensure that it does not transfer weeds to clean areas, treatment of contaminated sands from heavy oil projects in bacteria-laden aeration units, fertilizing and seeding three or four times a summer for two or three years until the hydrocarbon content of the soil is down to an acceptable level, are now reported to be common practices