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OXNARD – The
California Department of Conservation
(DOC) has finished work to dismantle an
“orphaned” oil production and storage
site, eliminating an eyesore and
potential public safety risk.
“This facility was by
far the worst orphan tank site in our
district,” said Bruce Hesson, District
Deputy in charge of the department’s
Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal
Resources (DOGGR) Ventura office. “Not
only does the removal of this tank
facility dramatically improve the
appearance of the site, it precludes the
potential for illegal dumping and
vandalism, and has eliminated the chance
of future spills.”
Non-producing wells
are considered “idle” as long as
operators maintain them in accordance
with state regulations and have a plan
to put them back into production or plug
and abandon them, a process that
permanently seals the well. However,
when no responsible party is associated
with a well, it is considered an
“orphan,” and the state intervenes.
DOGGR worked to remediate the site in
response to a request from the Ventura
County Department of Environmental
Health.
DOGGR oversees the
Orphan Well Plugging Fund, part of an
assessment funded by the petroleum
industry. DOGGR is authorized to spend
up to $1 million per year to plug and
abandon orphan wells. Contractors are
hired to complete the work while DOGGR
supervises the operation to ensure
public safety. Since 1977, DOGGR has
plugged 1,014 orphan wells at a cost of
more than $17.4 million. There are more
than 400 wells on the waiting list to be
plugged; 42 have been plugged and
abandoned around the state this year.
Geo Petroleum Inc., a
small company based in Yorba Linda,
operated the Oxnard facility from 1990
until March 2004, when the company
ceased operation. Its facilities around
the state were declared deserted.
Although the Oxnard site was secured,
vandalism caused a 30-barrel oil spill
in December 2005 that DOGGR paid to
cleaned up.
“This was a
significant project because of its high
visibility and the history of vandalism
there,” State Oil and Gas Supervisor Hal
Bopp said. “We plugged and abandoned two
orphaned wells and removed tanks,
pipelines and other surface facilities
that were a target for graffiti. The
site is on a major road into Oxnard
(along Fifth Street and near an Amtrak
Line) and was a blight on the
landscape.”
The project involved
several preliminary steps: photo
documentation of the site, determining
the tank capacities and fluid levels,
fluid sampling and laboratory analysis,
and an asbestos assessment.
DOGGR contracted with
Bakersfield-based MMI Services to plug
and abandon the two wells. Nix
Demolition, also of Bakersfield, handled
removal of the above-ground material.
Eleven tanks ranging from 250 barrels to
10,000 barrels in size (one barrel
equals 42 gallons) and associated
production equipment were removed from
the site.
Vacuum trucks removed
about 4,000 barrels of fluid from five
tanks prior to demolition. The material
was transported to a permitted
disposal/recycling center in Bakersfield
and the metal tank walls were cut into
small pieces for transport to a salvage
center.
Ventura County
released a $10,000 bond posted by Geo
Petroleum to DOGGR to help toward the
total cleanup cost of $219,000.
Unforeseen costs – such as soil
contamination discovered during
excavation work – were recouped through
the sale of salvaged steam generators.
DOGGR’s Ventura
office oversees operations in Ventura
and northwestern Los Angeles counties,
an area that produced 9.4 million
barrels of oil and 8.6 billion cubic
feet of natural gas in 2006.
DOGGR ensures the
safe exploration and development of
energy resources, overseeing the
construction, operation and closure of
oil, gas and geothermal wells, an
important step in guarding drinking and
agricultural waters against pollution.
Records for more than 190,000 oil, gas,
and geothermal wells, production and
injection statistics, well logs and
field maps are available at the
division's nine field offices. Some of
this information is available at
www.conservation.ca.gov.
In addition to
regulating oil, natural gas and
geothermal wells, the DOC studies and
maps earthquakes and other geologic
phenomena; maps and classifies areas
containing mineral deposits; ensures
reclamation of land used for mining;
administers agricultural and open-space
land conservation programs; and promotes
beverage container recycling.
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