Fermented and Flavored : South Carolina Gets a New Water Bill

Born out of the last drought, fermented and flavored for five years in the legislature, South Carolina's first water surface permitting bill was signed into law last month. Remember, for most cases as long as an interbasin water transfer was not involved, one did not need any permit to withdraw water from a stream in South Carolina.

It a brand new day. This new bill establishes a surface water permitting program to be operated through the state Department of Health and Environmental Control(DHEC). This bill basically grandfathers existing users and sets up new requirements for new users.  A new surface water user would now have to show DHEC the following (directly from the bill):

(1)    the minimum instream flow or minimum water level and the safe yield for the surface water source at the location of the proposed surface water withdrawal;

(2)    the anticipated effect of the applicant's proposed use on existing users of the same surface water source including, but not limited to, present agricultural, municipal, industrial, electrical generation, and instream users;

(3)    the reasonably foreseeable future need for the surface water including, but not limited to, reasonably foreseeable agricultural, municipal, industrial, electrical generation, and instream uses;

(4)    whether it is reasonably foreseeable that the applicant's proposed withdrawals would result in a significant, detrimental impact on navigation, fish and wildlife habitat, or recreation;

(5)    the applicant's reasonably foreseeable future water needs from that surface water;

(6)    the beneficial impact on the State and its political subdivisions from a proposed withdrawal;

(7)    the impact of applicable industry standards on the efficient use of water, if followed by the applicant;

(8)    the anticipated effect of the applicant's proposed use on the following if the permit is granted:

(a)    interstate and intrastate water use;

(b)    public health and welfare;

(c)    economic development and the economy of the State. 

The bill stipulates existing surface water users can withdraw water in an amount equal to one of the following: 

• documented historical water use,
• current permitted treatment capacity,
• design capacity of the intake
• structure as of the effective date of this chapter,
• design capacity of a pending intake structure permit application,
• an amount necessary to recover indebtedness from an outstanding bond or revenue certificate issued through the sale of surface water, or for a publicly owned water utility
• the safe yield of the utility's existing or permitted water supply only reservoir, whichever is greatest.

This is a great first step, however,  the next step may take more time ...watershed level planning and management.

Crunch Interstate Water Issues Conference in September

Sorry for the posting drought. I have been working on lots of fun side projects which have gotten in the way of my writing.  One of the projects has been helping to organize a regional water resources conference in September.   I thought I would share our flyer and registration form.  If you are interested in more details, we just posted a draft agenda online at the conference website. Check it out here.

Crunch IWI Flyer and Registration Form

Oil Spill Timeline in Numbers [infographic]

Gulf Oil Spill Timeline

This timeline was compiled from numbers published by Deepwater Horizon Unified Command.

What is Plan B? Containing the oil spill

Turning the blowout preventer off has not worked so far (see my previous post).

So, now what? Plan B is a go.

As early as tomorrow, BP is going to try to put a lid over over the largest leak source. The containment chamber is designed to collect the oil so that it can be pumped to a tanker at the surface.

The system is made up of a 125-ton, 14’ x 24’ x 40’ containment chamber that will be set on top of the largest leak source which is about 600 feet from the wellhead. A 5,000 foot riser will convey the hydrocarbons to the surface ship, the Deepwater Enterprise, which has the ability to separate the oil from the water and gas. The oil can then be offloaded later at a terminal onshore.

Sounds easy, right?  Wrong.

This is the first time this system will be used at this water depth. BP says at best this system could divert only 85% of oil rising from the seafloor.  After Katrina, these type of structures were lowered over damaged wellheads to allow divers to repair wellheads, but at much shallower depths. There also may be a danger of pressure building in the containment structure as the oil gushes in. 

Containment Chambers in Pictures

View more presentations from Robert Osborne.

Fingers are crossed.

Update on May 13, 2010

Failed, at least so far. However, they released a cool video of the effort today.

Oil Spill's Failure Nexus : the Blowout Preventer

During the wild and early days of oilfield operations, gushers would occur when underground pressures were encountered during drilling. There was no way to stop them until James Smither Abercrombie and Harry S. Cameron in 1922 devised a solution. Two horizontally opposed hydraulic rams were designed to close off a well at the surface of the wellhead. It was the the first blowout preventer or BOP.

To be honest, I never knew out about blowout preventers before this term entered the national lexicon last week with the continuing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In actuality there is not just one hydraulic ram on the modern day BOP.  It is built to be foolproof with multiple redundancies. There are a series of hydraulic rams and a different valve called an annular preventer. As shown in the diagram below, the annular preventer usually sits on top of the BOP and has a rubber doughnut that is mechanically squeezed inward to seal the pipe.

Houston we have a problem. Right now, engineers and specialist are gathered in Houston trying to figure out if this blowout preventer can be closed using six remotely operated robotic submersibles.  So far attempts at closing this blowout preventer have been unsuccessful.

Lets hope they figure it out.

Section Cuts of Rams:
WorldWide Oilfield Machine Co.