Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Salting the Earth: The Environmental Impact of Oil and Gas Wastewater Spills

For five days in July 2014, a broken pipe spilled more than one million gallons of wastewater produced by unconventional oil drilling into a steep ravine filled with natural springs and beaver dams on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Researchers, including members of the Reston Biogeochemical Processes in Groundwater Laboratory, assessed the potential impacts of this and other similar releases on the health of humans and the environment.

Read the full article here.

USGS scientist drills through the ice covering a river using a motorized auger
Even in the winter, USGS scientists collect water-quality samples which are made possible by power ice augers. USGS scientists are investigating effects of a large unconventional oil and gas (UOF) brine wastewater spill into tributaries of the Missouri River, in North Dakota.

Get Our News

These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.