Maybe Oil and Water Should Mix - At Least In Texas Law: An Analysis of Current Problems With Texas Ground Water Law and How Established Oil and Gas Law Could Provide Appropriate Solutions

If oil were involved, rather than water, Texas law provides the landowner absolute ownership of all the oil and gas in place beneath his land. However, the Texas\u27 Railroad Commission requires a permit before drilling operations begin, enforces spacing rules, and sets production limits designed to maximize the overall production from the reservoir and enforce the correlative rights of neighbors. The Railroad Commission also makes and enforces rules to minimize waste and environmental damage. These rules sound like Arizona\u27s reasonable use doctrine for ground water; the concepts are familiar to Texas legislators, Texas courts and to Texas property owners. Using the State\u27s police powers in such a regulatory scheme has already been tested in Texas courts in oil and gas regulation, and a centralized state agency such as the Texas Water Commission offers advantages in cost and expertise. The application of the reasonable use doctrine to ground water appears to be the best alternative

Eruptions at Lone Star Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, USA: 1. Energetics and eruption dynamics

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth 118 (2013): 4048–4062, doi:10.1002/jgrb.50251.Geysers provide a natural laboratory to study multiphase eruptive processes. We present results from a 4 day experiment at Lone Star Geyser in Yellowstone National Park, USA. We simultaneously measured water discharge, acoustic emissions, infrared intensity, and visible and infrared video to quantify the energetics and dynamics of eruptions, occurring approximately every 3 h. We define four phases in the eruption cycle (1) a 28±3 min phase with liquid and steam fountaining, with maximum jet velocities of 16–28 m s−1, steam mass fraction of less than ∼0.01. Intermittently choked flow and flow oscillations with periods increasing from 20 to 40 s are coincident with a decrease in jet velocity and an increase of steam fraction; (2) a 26±8 min posteruption relaxation phase with no discharge from the vent, infrared (IR), and acoustic power oscillations gliding between 30 and 40 s; (3) a 59±13 min recharge period during which the geyser is quiescent and progressively refills, and (4) a 69±14 min preplay period characterized by a series of 5–10 min long pulses of steam, small volumes of liquid water discharge, and 50–70 s flow oscillations. The erupted waters ascend from a 160–170°C reservoir, and the volume discharged during the entire eruptive cycle is 20.8±4.1 m3. Assuming isentropic expansion, we calculate a heat output from the geyser of 1.4–1.5 MW, which is <0.1% of the total heat output from Yellowstone Caldera.Support comes from NSF (L. Karlstrom, M. Manga), the USGS Volcano Hazards program (S. Hurwitz, F. Murphy, M.J.S. Johnston, and R.B. McCleskey), and WHOI (R. Sohn).2014-02-1

Experimental study of beta-delayed proton decay of (23)Al for nucleosynthesis in novae

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/The beta-delayed gamma and proton decay of (23)Al has been studied with an alternative detector setup at the focal plane of the momentum achromat recoil separator MARS at Texas AandM University. We could detect protons down to an energy of 200 keV and determine the corresponding branching ratios. Contrary to results of previous beta-decay studies, no strong proton intensity from the decay of the isobaric analog state (IAS) of the (23)Al ground state at E(x) = 7803 keV in (23)Mg was observed. Instead we assign the observed low-energy group E(p,c.m.) = 206 keV to the decay from a state that is 16 keV below the IAS. We measured both proton and gamma branches from the decay of this state at E(x) = 7787 keV in (23)Mg, which is a very rare case in the literature. Combining our data with its measured lifetime, we determine its resonance strength to be omega gamma = 1.4(-0.4)(+0.5) meV. The value is in agreement with older direct measurements, but disagrees with a recent direct measurement. This state is the most important resonance for the radiative proton capture (22)Na(p, gamma)(23)Mg in some astrophysical environments, such as novae

Single and double proton emissions from the O-14+He-4 interaction

Journals published by the American Physical Society can be found at http://publish.aps.org/We observed single and double proton emissions in the O-14+He-4 interaction by the thick target inverse kinematic (TTIK) method at initial energy for O-14 at 32.7 MeV. We found that the protons mainly originate from the resonance excitation of states in Ne-18. The observed states in Ne-18 decay by protons mainly to proton unstable states in F-17. It was found that the decay of a state in Ne-18 at E-ex=8.45 MeV demonstrates the features of a decay by a correlated proton pair. The observed properties of the O-14+He-4 interaction make a previous interpretation for the rate of O-14(He-4, p)F-17 at astrophysical energies suspect. We show how the TTIK method should be modified to obtain the data of astrophysical interest

Microbial sulfate reduction and metal attenuation in pH 4 acid mine water

Sediments recovered from the flooded mine workings of the Penn Mine, a Cu-Zn mine abandoned since the early 1960s, were cultured for anaerobic bacteria over a range of pH (4.0 to 7.5). The molecular biology of sediments and cultures was studied to determine whether sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) were active in moderately acidic conditions present in the underground mine workings. Here we document multiple, independent analyses and show evidence that sulfate reduction and associated metal attenuation are occurring in the pH-4 mine environment. Water-chemistry analyses of the mine water reveal: (1) preferential complexation and precipitation by H2S of Cu and Cd, relative to Zn; (2) stable isotope ratios of 34S/32S and 18O/16O in dissolved SO4 that are 2–3 ‰ heavier in the mine water, relative to those in surface waters; (3) reduction/oxidation conditions and dissolved gas concentrations consistent with conditions to support anaerobic processes such as sulfate reduction. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses of sediment show 1.5-micrometer, spherical ZnS precipitates. Phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) and denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analyses of Penn Mine sediment show a high biomass level with a moderately diverse community structure composed primarily of iron- and sulfate-reducing bacteria. Cultures of sediment from the mine produced dissolved sulfide at pH values near 7 and near 4, forming precipitates of either iron sulfide or elemental sulfur. DGGE coupled with sequence and phylogenetic analysis of 16S rDNA gene segments showed populations of Desulfosporosinus and Desulfitobacterium in Penn Mine sediment and laboratory cultures

Maybe Oil and Water Should Mix - At Least In Texas Law: An Analysis of Current Problems With Texas Ground Water Law and How Established Oil and Gas Law Could Provide Appropriate Solutions

If oil were involved, rather than water, Texas law provides the landowner absolute ownership of all the oil and gas in place beneath his land. However, the Texas\u27 Railroad Commission requires a permit before drilling operations begin, enforces spacing rules, and sets production limits designed to maximize the overall production from the reservoir and enforce the correlative rights of neighbors. The Railroad Commission also makes and enforces rules to minimize waste and environmental damage. These rules sound like Arizona\u27s reasonable use doctrine for ground water; the concepts are familiar to Texas legislators, Texas courts and to Texas property owners. Using the State\u27s police powers in such a regulatory scheme has already been tested in Texas courts in oil and gas regulation, and a centralized state agency such as the Texas Water Commission offers advantages in cost and expertise. The application of the reasonable use doctrine to ground water appears to be the best alternative

Tapwater Exposures, Effects Potential, and Residential Risk Management in Northern Plains Nations

In the United States (US), private-supply tapwater (TW) is rarely monitored. This data gap undermines individual/community risk-management decision-making, leading to an increased probability of unrecognized contaminant exposures in rural and remote locations that rely on private wells. We assessed point-of-use (POU) TW in three northern plains Tribal Nations, where ongoing TW arsenic (As) interventions include expansion of small community water systems and POU adsorptive-media treatment for Strong Heart Water Study participants. Samples from 34 private-well and 22 public-supply sites were analyzed for 476 organics, 34 inorganics, and 3 in vitro bioactivities. 63 organics and 30 inorganics were detected. Arsenic, uranium (U), and lead (Pb) were detected in 54%, 43%, and 20% of samples, respectively. Concentrations equivalent to public-supply maximum contaminant level(s) (MCL) were exceeded only in untreated private-well samples (As 47%, U 3%). Precautionary health-based screening levels were exceeded frequently, due to inorganics in private supplies and chlorine-based disinfection byproducts in public supplies. The results indicate that simultaneous exposures to co-occurring TW contaminants are common, warranting consideration of expanded source, point-of-entry, or POU treatment(s). This study illustrates the importance of increased monitoring of private-well TW, employing a broad, environmentally informative analytical scope, to reduce the risks of unrecognized contaminant exposures