CARLSBAD, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico officials say updated monitoring devices will be able to provide advanced warning if a defunct brine well on the edge of Carlsbad begins to collapse.
Equipment was included in initial spending that was earmarked for remediation of the potentially hazardous site, the Carlsbad Current-Argus reports .
Jim Griswold, environmental bureau chief with the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division, said 10 percent of $45 million allocated by state and local funds went to the final design of the project and improvements to monitoring equipment at the site.
But he said the spending was worth it because updated monitoring devices at the site of the well could provide hours of advanced notice of a collapse.
“If the cavern was to catastrophically fail, we’d be able to see that a few hours before the collapse. Hopefully, we would be able to provide that kind of early warning,” Griswold said. “We could get people away so there’s no loss of life.”
Griswold said the project to remediate the former well would be at peak activity in January 2020, with a grouting campaign complete by the following July.
That would be followed by two more years of monitoring to make sure the project worked.
Formerly owned by the now-defunct company I&W, the brine well was decommissioned in 2008 when the land was deemed unstable.
The well is operated by pumping fresh water into an underground salt formation and drawing up the resulting brine for use in the oilfield.
After decades of this work, a large cavity formed beneath the surface and under one of the busiest highway junctions in southeast New Mexico, the South Y where U.S. Highways 285 and 62/180 converge as traffic travels to and from the oilfield.
A collapse could interrupt a main thoroughfare for an industry New Mexico relies on for about a third of its overall budget, while also damaging other key infrastructure such as the Carlsbad Irrigation District and train tracks in the area.
Experts estimated the bill for a collapse could be as high as $1 billion in damages, litigation and loss of life.
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Information from: Carlsbad Current-Argus, http://www.currentargus.com/
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