WORC Releases Oil and Gas Mapping Project

WORC’s newest digital resource, the WORC Oil and Gas Waste Mapping Project, maps the oil and gas waste stream in four Western states: Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming. The project is a visual follow-up to WORC report, No Time to Waste. Released in 2015, No Time to Waste detailed the regulatory shortcomings regarding the handling, disposal, and transportation of oil and gas waste.

Created by the FracTracker Alliance, the WORC Oil and Gas Waste Mapping Project, using state agency data, charts:

  • wastewater spills,
  • wastewater injection wells,
  • radioactive solid waste facilities, and
  • commercial oilfield waste disposal facilities.

The Maps

You can view the maps for each state by clicking the links below. To better view the maps, click on the enlarge button in the upper right corner of the maps.

Waste mapping project

Colorado

Montana

North Dakota

Wyoming

Purpose

Following the release of No Time to Waste, there was a clear need for a visual follow-up that met the below purposes:

  1. To provide people with a user-friendly resource that allows people to see the size and scale of the environmental impact of the oil and gas waste stream. This is to increase awareness of this pressing environmental issue.
  2. Create a resource that allows people to easily locate oil and gas waste near where they live. By making it easier for people to find oil and gas waste like spills, injections, or facilities near where they live, the project allows to communities to more easily monitor what is going on near where they live.

Testimonial About the WORC Oil and Gas Waste Mapping Project

“These maps are an amazing resource for communities impacted by oil and gas development,” said WORC’s Oil and Gas Campaign Team Chair Linda Weiss of Belfield, N.D. “The visual nature of these maps makes it easier for people directly impacted by oil and gas development to know the location of oil and gas waste facilities and spills. Prior to the release of these maps, people like me had to search through hundreds of pages of state agency data to figure out the location of spills or waste sites.”

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