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Facebook dumped broken equipment and thousands of gallons of drilling fluid beneath the ocean floor just off the coast of Oregon in April. The company was building a landing site for an undersea telecommunications cable when it encountered an unexpected problem. A drill bit broke and got stuck after hitting hard rock about 50 feet below the seabed on April 28, Oregon Live and the Tillamook Headlight-Herald first reported in early August.
Residents of the seaside community of Tierra del Mar, Oregon have feared that construction of the landing site could pose problems for residents and the environment since its first proposal in 2018. One of the biggest threats with an incident like this, experts say, is the potential release of drilling fluid that could harm marine life and contaminate groundwater, depending on the chemicals in the fluid.
“Fifty feet is not at all a big separation in terms of keeping something nasty out of the seabed,” says Chris Goldfinger, professor in the College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. . Rocks are very permeable and fluids pass through them all the time, he adds. “It might not happen right away, but eventually, if it’s there, it will probably sink to the seabed,” he says.
The drilling mud used to lubricate the equipment was a clay called bentonite with small amounts of a polymer additive, according to Facebook. It’s biodegradable and non-toxic, says the company The edge. Bentonite alone is generally not bad for the environment, says John Dilles, another Oregon state geology professor. The edge in an email. It is sometimes used to absorb toxic metals at sites that need to be cleaned up or where waste needs to be confined, he says.
In the event of an accidental release, however, the components of the drilling fluid used at the site must be prevented from “entering sewers, waterways or low areas,” according to safety data sheets published by the Company. State. Facebook chose to leave 6,500 gallons of mud in place to “minimize the risk of leaks,” he wrote.
Facebook also left a drill tip, tools and 1,100 feet of pipe. It’s not uncommon for companies to leave broken pieces of equipment behind when they are more expensive or can cause even more destruction. According to Goldfinger, there is a risk of losing more equipment while working on hard rock.
Facebook has determined that there will be no “negative impact on the environment or public health” by leaving the drill head behind, he said in an email. But the Oregon State Lands Department believes other solutions could have been considered had it been notified earlier. Facebook did not notify the state that it left the materials behind until June 17, seven weeks after the start of the exercise. The delay “ruled out any potential option to recover the equipment,” State Lands Department spokesman Ali Hansen said. The edge in an email. “The opportunity to fully assess recovery options was lost” when Facebook sealed off the drill without notifying the state, Hansen said.
The original project license does not authorize Facebook’s subsidiary Edge Cable Holdings to “store” material on the site. As a result, the State Lands Department gave Facebook one month to come to an agreement on damages owed to the state for violation of the permit. They also gave the company 180 days to file a new license or safely remove the equipment. Facebook plans to continue construction of the cable landing in 2021. It will be the end point of the JUPITER cable system, which will link the United States to Japan and the Philippines. Amazon and SoftBank also own parts of the cable.
Facebook did not respond The edgewonders if it will continue to monitor all abandoned materials on the site or pay for any issues that may arise in the future. “Facebook should receive a major fine to cover all costs incurred by the state in dealing with this horrific fiasco. The state of Oregon has so far been overly welcoming to submarine cable companies, ”wrote the nonprofit advocacy group Oregon Coast Alliance, which has consistently opposed the project, in a statement. July bulletin.
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