Exploratory Hydrocarbon Drilling Impacts to Arctic Lake Ecosystems

<div><p>Recent attention regarding the impacts of oil and gas development and exploitation has focused on the unintentional release of hydrocarbons into the environment, whilst the potential negative effects of other possible avenues of environmental contamination are less well documented. In the hydrocarbon-rich and ecologically sensitive Mackenzie Delta region (NT, Canada), saline wastes associated with hydrocarbon exploration have typically been disposed of in drilling sumps (i.e., large pits excavated into the permafrost) that were believed to be a permanent containment solution. However, failure of permafrost as a waste containment medium may cause impacts to lakes in this sensitive environment. Here, we examine the effects of degrading drilling sumps on water quality by combining paleolimnological approaches with the analysis of an extensive present-day water chemistry dataset. This dataset includes lakes believed to have been impacted by saline drilling fluids leaching from drilling sumps, lakes with no visible disturbances, and lakes impacted by significant, naturally occurring permafrost thaw in the form of retrogressive thaw slumps. We show that lakes impacted by compromised drilling sumps have significantly elevated lakewater conductivity levels compared to control sites. Chloride levels are particularly elevated in sump-impacted lakes relative to all other lakes included in the survey. Paleolimnological analyses showed that invertebrate assemblages appear to have responded to the leaching of drilling wastes by a discernible increase in a taxon known to be tolerant of elevated conductivity coincident with the timing of sump construction. This suggests construction and abandonment techniques at, or soon after, sump establishment may result in impacts to downstream aquatic ecosystems. With hydrocarbon development in the north predicted to expand in the coming decades, the use of sumps must be examined in light of the threat of accelerated permafrost thaw, and the potential for these industrial wastes to impact sensitive Arctic ecosystems.</p></div

Map of study area, schematic of typical drilling sump and image of a degrading sump.

<p>A) The location of the 101 study lakes in the Mackenzie Delta uplands (Northwest Territories, Canada) (triangles – drilling-sump lakes; squares – thaw-slump lakes; circles – control lakes). Inset shows the region in the context of Canada. B) Image of a degrading drilling sump from the Mackenzie Delta uplands, near Parsons Lake, exhibiting significant surface and perimeter ponding. C) Generalized schematic of a drilling mud sump. A large pit is excavated into the permafrost and filled with the drilling wastes and fluids. These drilling fluids are then allowed to partially or completely freeze, and backfilled with the excavated material. The assumption is that the material will be permanently contained in the permafrost. Redrawn from <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0078875#pone.0078875-Dyke1" target="_blank">[8]</a>.</p

Mean chloride concentration in the 101 lake dataset separated into three <i>a priori</i> defined groups.

<p>Vertical error bars representing the standard deviation are included. Letters A and B indicate drilling-sump impacted lakes have significantly higher chloride levels than either thaw-slump affected lakes or control lakes, which are not statistically different (Tukey HSD post-hoc test, following ANOVA run on normalized environmental data)</p

Stratigraphic profile of the most common cladoceran taxa from the three study lakes.

<p>Relative abundance diagrams from: lakes A) I20, impacted by drilling sump degradation; and control lakes B) C23; and C) C1A. Species assemblages (x axes) are scaled by relative abundance. Down-core sedimentary profiles (y axes) are scaled by date, based on ²¹⁰Pb radiometric dating techniques, with the depth in the sediment core included as a secondary axis. For all three lakes, two biostratigraphic zones were identified (constrained incremental sum of squares cluster analysis with the broken stick model) and are plotted with the background colour of one zone in grey the other white. The known timing of construction of the compromised drilling sump near Lake I20 (industry ID: Parsons F-09) is included as a horizontal line. The vertical red lines represent the pre- and post-sump construction mean of the relative abundance of the cladoceran <i>Alona circumfimbriata</i>.</p

Holopedium Survey Data

Holopedium abundance data from the Ontario paleolimnological survey, the Nova Scotia paleolimnogical survey and the two (1980s and 2000s) Ontario limnological surveys