Bismarck, N.D. – For about 40 years, state workers have been dumping saltwater left over from oil production on some North Dakota roads. That’s news to the health department, which wants the practice stopped.
The Transportation Department claims oil-well wastewater – up to 10 times saltier than seawater – is a safe, effective and cheap deicer.
Environmentalists are stunned that workers have been dumping tens of thousands of gallons of the potentially contaminated stuff on roads every year, causing unknown harm to wetlands, streams and water supplies.
“I can’t imagine anybody would sign off on this,” said Wayde Schafer, a North Dakota spokesman for the Sierra Club.
“When it leaves the well site and is in an oil-company truck, it’s considered toxic material,” Schafer said. “If they have just one drip from the truck, they’re fined. But when it’s transferred to a state truck, it’s spread wholesale along the interstate. It definitely makes one wonder.”
Transportation spokeswoman Peggy Anderson said the state health department had approved the use of the salty wastewater for deicing.
But the health department’s water- quality director, Dennis Fewless, said he hadn’t even heard about the practice until asked about it by The Associated Press.
“In our opinion, we did not give them our blessing on this practice,” Fewless said Friday.
Fewless said the wastewater pulled from oil wells may contain oil and chemicals from drilling operations.
“The bottom line is, we need to look to the future and look for better options and phase this process out,” Fewless said.
Transportation Department officials say they have not seen any ill effects caused by the saltwater, such as dead vegetation along highways or rustier-than-normal vehicles.
Transportation engineer Brad Darr said the saltwater has been used on state roads in the Dickinson area of southwestern North Dakota since the late 1960s and that the practice has expanded to some other parts of the state in the past decade.
Darr said the Transportation Department had no exact figure but uses “tens of thousands of gallons” of the saltwater each year, at no charge from the oil companies – who otherwise would have to pay someone to haul it off.
“They can have all they want,” said Dave Wanner, a manager at Missouri Basin Well Service in Belfield.
