New guidelines for successful oil and gas recovery

The U.S. Geological Survey, in partnership with the Bureau of Land Management, recently released a Report on Oil and Gas Recovery Technology and Methods This will, for the first time, provide land managers and oil and gas operators with specific tools to successfully reclaim disturbed land during and after oil and gas activities.

Federal laws and regulations require that oil and gas sites be inventoried, monitored, and protected, but this is the first publication to define standards and guidelines at the national level for how to restore, monitor, and successfully rehabilitate disturbed oil and gas sites.

The report also highlights the importance of best management practices, clear standards, effective monitoring and minimizing surface disturbance for successful land reclamation.

Initiated through an interagency agreement with the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Bureau of Land Management drew on existing federal land reclamation policy, a review of the scientific literature, actual field experience, and expertise from a variety of sources, including federal and state agencies, oil and gas contractors, and academia to produce the document, which is intended to be used at every step of land reclamation, from start to finish.

“The Bureau of Land Management’s land management experience and the U.S. Geological Survey’s state-of-the-art science and technology combine to create this powerful tool for federal agencies engaged in oil and gas surface management to ensure environmentally responsible outcomes,” he said. Benjamin Gruber, BLM Acting Assistant Director for Energy, Minerals, and Real Estate Management“We are honored to have worked with the U.S. Geological Survey to develop this guidance related to all parts of the process – from companies developing drilling applications to monitoring reclamation activities after well plugging.”

New comprehensive guide

Prior to this report, the industry relied on a set ofGolden Book‘ for practical information on oil and gas leasing and permitting, operations, bonding and reclamation planning processes. However, the Golden Book lacks the kind of precise guidance often found in guidance memoranda and manuals produced by surface management agency offices, multijurisdictional groups or state agencies.

In order to maximize the effectiveness of hydrocarbon recovery efforts, a set of national guidelines and policies for oil and gas monitoring and assessment is needed.

This new USGS-BLM report complements the Golden Manual and other existing guidance to provide comprehensive and clear steps and indicators for reclaimed surface management. The report provides these uniform monitoring protocols and standards, covering standardized soil and vegetation field monitoring methods, indicators, benchmarks, appropriate design and analysis, and electronic data capture and repository to support planning procedures, leasing, permitting processes, and bond issuance decisions.

While the report is specific to the oil and gas industry, many of the concepts and practices found within have the potential to advance other fluid mineral developments and reclamation of land disturbances, including wind and solar development.

Using Ecological Science to Succeed

Land reclamation is essentially a technique to re-adjust highly disturbed or degraded ecosystems to tracks that are beneficial to local flora and fauna, and to restore habitats and ecological communities similar to the surrounding natural environment. In the process, the impacts of oil and gas development are minimized.

This means that a major component of land reclamation is replanting with locally suitable vegetation. Therefore, the report provides useful information on repositories and data collection platforms, such as Landscape data sharing, Esri ArcGIS Online Survey 123this Database for Inventory Monitoring and Assessment (DIMA) and Land use rights protection system.

The report also provides guidance for developing quantitative benchmarks to determine whether erosion and vegetation standards are met, including indicators such as erosion and site stability, species composition and community structure.

“This technical publication provides a solid foundation based on current ecological science. It is the result of a collaborative effort between leading ecologists and land restoration scientists from the BLM, USGS, other agencies, and private organizations,” Paul Wagner, Associate Director for Ecosystems at the U.S. Geological Survey“The report highlights the need for well-managed data collection to inform reclamation planning, operations, permitting decisions and adaptive management strategies.”

Factors such as climate change, drought, severe storms, temperature fluctuations and invasive species can affect seedling survival. Ensuring seedling survival is critical for agencies and operators to meet federal requirements and achieve reclamation success.

Successful reclamation is achieved when the criteria defining soil and vegetation restoration are met and a self-sustaining, vigorous, diverse, native or approved plant community is established to minimize visual disturbance to the land, provide fodder, stabilize the soil and prevent the growth of noxious weeds.

Who does this report support?

Combined with the Golden Book, this report provides the BLM, the nation’s largest surface management agency, with tools to monitor oil and gas recovery and ensure environmental outcomes. BLM field office staff guide operators in developing recovery plans and ensure recovery goals and expectations are clear. They review the progress and status of recovery projects, complete quality assessments and quality control of operator monitoring data, and provide feedback.

This report is also particularly useful to operators and contractors conducting oil and gas activities on U.S. federal or tribal lands, surface management agencies responsible for advising and conducting those activities, and managers of private lands and other landowner reclamation projects.

There are several phases of reclamation, including interim and final reclamation, each with different overall goals. This report helps facilitate relationships between ground management agencies and operators, highlights timelines, and provides operators with specific steps and goals in the reclamation process.

The report could be particularly useful for restoration efforts funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which provides $4.7 billion for the capping, restoration, and reclamation of abandoned well sites on federal, tribal, state, and private lands (see With passage of President Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law, 24 states will begin plugging more than 10,000 abandoned oil wells).

Read the full report online: Oil and Gas Recovery – Operations, Monitoring Methods, and Standards: U.S. Geological Survey Technology and Methods