Argyle landowner John David Monroe monitors activity on the land next to his home as best he can.

Westside Energy Corp. operates a gas well there, and a 30-year acquaintance, James Smith of Denton, also leases the land to run cattle.

But Monroe didn’t know Westside was storing used pipe on the land between his house and Brush Creek.

“I can’t see,” said Monroe, who is visually impaired.

Used pipe and other equipment can become coated with concentrated levels of radioactive residue, known as technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material, or NORM. Experts say it’s important that equipment be monitored and contaminated equipment be contained until it can be cleaned.

Radioactive materials have been linked to various forms of cancer, and health experts warn of the potential danger of close, continued proximity to such materials.

Smith said he watched energy company workers store varying-sized stacks of pipe on the ground next to a road to the wellhead for a while.

“They’ll take some out, and then bring some more back,” Smith said.

Brian Gross, Westside Energy’s director of operations, said crews were working at the well site several months ago.

“The pipe was left over from a dry gas line that went to a compressor,” Gross said.

He said Westside uses a chemical program to prevent NORM. In addition, the company recently did an environmental site assessment of all its leases in Denton, Wise, Montague, Cooke and Hill counties and found no problems, according to Gross.

 

Poor practices

In Oklahoma, energy workers abandoned oilfield pipe and allowed other NORM accumulations to leach at the Osage Indian Reservation. A U.S. Geological Services study, led by geologist James Otton 10 years ago, found that erosion pushed NORM contamination farther afield than the well pad.

The National Academy of Science’s decontamination expert John Wiley said it is important that NORM waste be isolated and monitored. Radiation workers wear personal radiation badges to monitor exposure, and he recommended oil and gas industry workers do the same.

“You need to measure it [NORM] and control it in a reasonable way,” Wiley said. “You need to respect it.”

Experts say NORM accumulation is less common in natural gas fields than oil fields, but the Barnett Shale is proving different. Two decontamination companies have cleaned 25 different Barnett Shale sites of about 1,000 barrels of radioactive waste in the last two years. Two of the nearly 200 operators registered with the Texas Railroad Commission to work in the Barnett Shale have provided for cleanup of the hottest waste.

Licensed decontamination specialists recommend that energy companies regularly survey their equipment for NORM. But because proper disposal is expensive, some operators put off dealing with it, industry insiders say.

 

No notification

In addition to allowing the industry to self-monitor, Texas Railroad Commission rules don’t require a landowner be notified if decontamination work is being done. Moreover, if the contaminated material is diluted to meet state limits, the operator is not required to notify either the state or the landowner to bury contaminated material on site.

News that special crews pulled up to an existing gas well on Jason Zimmerman’s land in March to decontaminate 10 barrels of radioactive residue came as a surprise to him.

The well on Zimmerman’s parcel was one of four wells near Drop, a tiny west Denton County town, that were decontaminated in March, according to Texas Department of Health Services documents obtained through an open-records request. In fact, 25 different sites in Denton, Tarrant and Wise counties have been decontaminated since 2005. Eight were in Denton County, 12 in Wise County and five in Tarrant County.

Zimmerman bought 32 acres along Western Star Drive in western Denton County last November in his reach for the ubiquitous Texas dream — a quiet little place in the country.

Recently, the energy company had been pushing him for more surface rights, he said, because it wants to drill another gas well. But in those discussions, no one told him about the cleanup.

“The gas well stayed with the previous owner,” Zimmerman said. “I didn’t do a real thorough due diligence when I bought the land.”

Jo Ann Lawson Sims, who lives on the 40 acres between Denton and Ponder where her gas well is, wasn’t notified of decontamination either. That work took place about a week after the cleanups near Drop.

Although the gas well on her land was decontaminated during spring break and Sims, a teacher, was home at the time, she didn’t recall any unusual activity at the well site.

However, she said Devon Energy put a padlock on the gate about a year ago, which blocked the main entry to her pasture. She’s been upset that she hasn’t been able use the gate, even after complaining to an oil field services worker on a recent visit.

“He said he worked for a chemical company and he was just there to make sure everything was OK,” Sims said.

Doug Bridwell, environmental and health safety director for Devon Energy’s central division, said the company considers NORM cleanup part of normal operations and there wouldn’t be any correlation between a new lock and the cleanup.

Most NORM contamination happens inside production equipment, such as the tanks and pumps, he said. Commission rules allow companies to use such equipment indefinitely, because it poses a low health risk to the general public.

 

Better practices?

The commission wrote its rules for NORM in the mid-1990s, after a flurry of initial research established some of the key problems with NORM and how to handle it. Previous contaminations triggered a number of lawsuits around the country. Some of the responsibility to oversee the proper disposal of NORM went to the Texas Department of Health Services, especially when contamination exceeded certain levels.

Because commission rules don’t require it, most NORM contaminations don’t have to be cleaned up until the well is plugged or the lease is sold.

Most rules about NORM have not been revisited since the new “urban drilling” paradigm began, with gas wells shoehorned between homes and businesses, and subdivisions being built over the top of producing gas fields and flowing pipelines.

Experts in radiation exposure are not the only ones questioning the old rules.

“As a landowner, I’d like to know if they have done something I should know about and what repercussions it has,” Sims said. “What have I been exposed to? What has my family been exposed to?”

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com .

Radioactive material is present in soils and rocks, but it can become concentrated to troublesome levels by oil and gas mining, hence the name technologically enhanced, naturally occurring radioactive material, or NORM.

NORM is least likely to be found when a gas well is first drilled. However, during the life of a producing well, both down the hole and in the mazes of pipes and equipment connected to it, NORM can crystallize on equipment and continue its radioactive decay series, including leaching onto the soil.

Opinions vary on the risk NORM presents to the environment, but experts agree that people, plants and animals can be affected by NORM in two ways — directly through ionizing radiation if standing near a contaminated site, or indirectly by inhaling or ingesting particulate that travels from the site. In addition, structures built over NORM-contaminated soils can concentrate radon to unhealthy levels. Once in the lungs, radon continues to decay inside lung tissue. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer.

Radium-226 and radium-228 are the most likely radioactive daughters to travel up with the water produced in oil and gas mining, but decontamination of other radionuclides in Texas in the past two years has included lead, bismuth and polonium-210.

Proper disposal of NORM is expensive. A recent study by the Society of Petroleum Engineers found that, if assessment and cleanup of NORM were strictly regulated, it would make some oil and gas production uneconomic.

SOURCES: Oil & Gas Accountability Project, Denton Record-Chronicle research