Ramirez Pedro, Mosley Sherri Baker
NWRS, Division of Natural Resources and Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America.
NWRS, Natural Resource Program Center, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2015 Apr 27;10(4):e0124085. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124085. eCollection 2015.
The increased demand for oil and gas places a burden on lands set aside for natural resource conservation. Oil and gas development alters the environment locally and on a much broader spatial scale depending on the intensity and extent of mineral resource extraction. The current increase in oil and gas exploration and production in the United States prompted an update of the number of pipelines and wells associated with oil and gas production on National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) lands. We obtained geospatial data on the location of oil and gas wells and pipelines within and close to the boundaries of NWRS lands (units) acquired as fee simple (i.e. absolute title to the surface land) by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. We found that 5,002 wells are located in 107 NWRS units and 595 pipelines transect 149 of the 599 NWRS units. Almost half of the wells (2,196) were inactive, one-third (1,665) were active, and the remainder of the wells were either plugged and abandoned or the status was unknown. Pipelines crossed a total of 2,155 kilometers (1,339 miles) of NWRS fee simple lands. The high level of oil and gas activity warrants follow up assessments for wells lacking information on production type or well status with emphasis on verifying the well status and identifying abandoned and unplugged wells. NWRS fee simple lands should also be assessed for impacts from brine, oil and other hydrocarbon spills, as well as habitat alteration associated with oil and gas, including the identification of abandoned oil and gas facilities requiring equipment removal and site restoration.
对石油和天然气需求的增加给预留用于自然资源保护的土地带来了负担。石油和天然气开发会在当地以及更广泛的空间尺度上改变环境，这取决于矿产资源开采的强度和范围。美国目前石油和天然气勘探与生产的增加促使对与国家野生动物保护区系统（NWRS）土地上的石油和天然气生产相关的管道和油井数量进行更新。我们获取了美国鱼类和野生动物管理局以完全所有权（即地表土地的绝对所有权）获取的NWRS土地（单元）内部及周边的石油和天然气井及管道位置的地理空间数据。我们发现，107个NWRS单元中有5002口油井，599个NWRS单元中的149个有595条管道穿过。几乎一半的油井（2196口）处于闲置状态，三分之一（1665口）处于活跃状态，其余油井要么已封堵废弃，要么状态不明。管道总共穿过了2155公里（1339英里）的NWRS完全所有权土地。石油和天然气活动的高水平使得有必要对缺乏生产类型或油井状态信息的油井进行后续评估，重点是核实油井状态并识别废弃和未封堵的油井。还应评估NWRS完全所有权土地受到盐水、石油和其他碳氢化合物泄漏的影响，以及与石油和天然气相关的栖息地改变，包括识别需要拆除设备和恢复场地的废弃石油和天然气设施。
