Best Management Practices
Best management practices (BMPs) are state-of-the-art mitigation measures that are applied on a site-specific basis to prevent, reduce, or avoid adverse social or environmental impacts. These practices are applied to oil and gas production and drilling to help ensure that energy development is conducted in an environmentally responsible way. Some Best Management Practices are as uncomplicated as choosing a paint color that helps oil and natural gas equipment blend with surrounding nature, turning development almost invisible. Other BMPs can reduce the amount of vegetation lost to development, or speed the regrowth of vegetation, or reduce the amount of wildlife disturbance in important habitats.
Best Management Practices are often used when drilling for gas and oil because they add an increased stage of environmental protection. As energy development continues to increase on the Nation’s public lands in response to rising prices and to our Nation’s increasing energy needs, it is important that we also take steps to protect the other important resources that we all cherish. Best Management Practices allow energy companies to increase their energy production while reducing their level of additional environmental impacts. By using the Best Management Practices, energy companies are able to drill more wells and disturb less land. Reduced land disturbance means that less habitat and scenic quality will be lost, and, in time, when development and energy production ceases, the original habitat and scenic values will be fully restored.
Every energy development proposal on the Public Lands undergoes extensive environmental review prior to approval. When energy companies propose on their drilling permit applications to drill in an approved environmentally sound manner using the Best Management Practices, the government and public environmental review process is far easier, and goes much more quickly.
The following are a few examples of successful projects using BMPs. In the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, many coal bed natural gas wells have been drilled with smaller water well drilling rigs, which are identical to what a homeowner would hire to drill water well for a home. An extremely small well pad is cleared for the drilling rig, and often times it is not necessary to construct a road. The Energy Company drives in on top of the vegetation, which leaves behind only two small, parallel wheel ruts. The pumping unit that pumps the water out of the coal seam to release the natural gas is located out of sight, mostly underground. Only a small fiberglass or metal box remains on the surface, and is painted a color that helps it to blend into the background. Pipelines for the produced natural gas, power lines that drive the pump, and water lines are all buried in the two-track road, which is later revegetated. The energy company seldomly has to drive to the well because the natural gas flows to a central compressor via a buried collection pipeline; the water to the central evaporation pond; and the well are all monitored electronically. The result is fewer and smaller roads, and less disruption to scenic and wildlife quality.