The team studies pathways of contaminants that might originate from the lifecycle of energy resources
image source - Vern Whitten Photography
The Energy Lifecycle Integrated Science Team focuses on the potential for contaminant exposures in the environment that might originate from energy resource activities including, extraction, production, transportation, storage, extraction, waste management and restoration. Perceived health risks to humans and other organisms will be distinguished from actual risks, if any. If actual risks are identified this project will inform how to economically and effectively minimize risk by providing scientific data and understandings about the environmental transport, fate, and exposure pathways of contaminants. Emphasis will be placed on addressing these issues on public and Department of Interior managed lands.
The United States is one of the largest users of energy, consuming annually about one-quarter of the energy resources produced in the world. The energy industry and government regulators work to provide energy resources to the public safely and effectively. Management of energy byproducts such as waste materials (including both solid and liquid wastes) from oil and gas development are a critical part of that work. However, spills, leaks, and other factors can create pathways for contaminants to enter the environment and result in exposures to humans and biota.
The associated health effects of specific spills have not been demonstrated in many cases, yet the perception of risk can drive action by industry and regulators. Hydrologists, chemists, biologists, and geologists on the Team conduct studies outside the mission of other federal agencies, by assessing actual versus perceived health effects to humans and biota due to exposures to energy production materials in the environment. This effort utilizes a watershed-and aquifer-based interdisciplinary science approach, providing a "big picture" that helps show where energy development activities are causing adverse health impacts on biota due to environmental contaminant exposures, as well as where they are not causing impacts. With this information in hand industry, land managers and other decision makers are able to balance the critical need for energy with further action, if any, to minimize health risks associated with energy production materials in the environment.
The USGS Energy Lifecycle Integrated Science Team (IST), a part of the Environmental Health Program, conducts research on potential contaminant exposures in the environment that might originate from the life cycle of energy resources. Their research is completed in laboratories, at targeted field sites, and in watersheds across the Nation to collectively deliver science on exposures and risks to wildlife, humans, ecosystems, and water resources. Potential contaminant releases are associated with transportation, storage, extraction, and management of energy-related products and wastes.
The team provides science to support balanced utilization and protection of our Nation’s resources. The Team is combining their findings on sources, fate, transport, and degradation of the contaminants with an understanding of the exposure and effects on wildlife and humans for a One-Health approach that recognizes the inextricable connections between the physical and living environment.
The Energy IST is unique in that they bring together geochemists, microbiologists, ecologists, toxicologists, geophysicists, hydrologists, and modelers along with remote sensing capabilities with more than 60 scientists from 16science centers across USGS. This breadth of research abilities allows the Team to address complex nationwide questions related to the lifecycle of energy resources that would be out of reach for individual and small groups of scientists The value of their research is enhanced by the active participation of stakeholders.
The Team Aims to:
- Identify Sources of Contaminants from Energy-Related Materials
- Identify Potential Pathways of Contaminants to/in the Environment
- Determine Toxicity and Risks to Organisms from Energy-Associated Materials in the Environment
- Evaluate Environmental Responses and Recovery from Energy Lifecycle Activities
- Evaluate Reuse Potential of Unconventional Oil and Gas (UOG) Wastes
Current Science Questions and Activities
- Materials from oil and gas (OG) extraction may contain toxic or radioactive elements from the geologic formation, additives such as biocides used during OG development, and products of natural degradation. What is the composition of the materials generated, the potential pathways to the environment, the mode-of-action and the effects, if any, on receptor organisms from exposure to these constituents?
- Energy development occurs nationwide on public and private lands at scales ranging from town to regional to state-level development. This work is focused on the regional, and especially watershed or aquifer scale, energy-resource associated releases (for example spills, pipeline breaks) to the environment. Are there contaminant exposures and actual, not perceived, public health concerns throughout the watershed or underlying aquifers downstream or downgradient of the release?
- Releases of energy-associated materials to the environment can occur at various time scales thereby altering biogeochemistry and potential health effects on fish and wildlife as well as contaminant exposures to humans. Is persistence related to actual health effects?
Selected Science Feature Article Listed Below.
See the publications tab for a complete list of publications
Below are data or web applications associated with this project.
Geophysical data from the unnamed lake at the National Crude Oil Spill Fate and Natural Attenuation Research Site, Bemidji, MN (ver. 3.0, May 2022)
Chemistry of waters collected in the Wolf Creek and Buffalo Creek watersheds in West Virginia in 2016
Chloride in water, metals in sediment and amphibian tissues and amphibian capture information from wetlands in the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota, 2015-2017
Acute toxicity of sodium chloride and potassium chloride to a unionid mussel (Lampsilis siliquoidea) in water exposures-Data
Historical data sets including inorganic and organic chemistry of water, oil, and sediments, aquifer hydraulic conductivity, and sediment grain size distribution at the National Crude Oil Spill Fate and Natural Attenuation Research Site near Bemidji, Minn
Weathering of Oil in a Surficial Aquifer, Bemidji, MN
Dataset of trace dissolved hydrocarbons in surface water and groundwater in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia between 2014 and 2017
Microbiology of the greater Bravo Dome region
Common hydraulic fracturing fluid additives alter the structure and function of anaerobic microbial communities
Arsenic and Iron data for mass balance calculations to investigate arsenic cycling in a petroleum plume
Partial release of iron, alkalinity, and oxygen data from Bemidji crude oil site, Minnesota 1993-2016
Widespread Legacy Brine Contamination from Oil Shales Reduces Survival of Chorus Frog Larvae-Data
Below are publications associated with this project.
Compositional analysis of formation water geochemistry and microbiology of commercial and carbon dioxide-rich wells in the southwestern United States
Factors affecting sampling strategies for design of an effects‐directed analysis for endocrine‐active chemicals
Organic compounds in produced waters from the Bakken Formation and Three Forks Formation in the Williston Basin, North Dakota
Groundwater quality and geochemistry of West Virginia’s southern coal fields
Acute and chronic toxicity of sodium nitrate and sodium sulfate to several freshwater organisms in water-only exposures
Shale gas development has limited effects on stream biology and geochemistry in a gradient-based, multiparameter study in Pennsylvania
The number of horizontally drilled shale oil and gas wells in the United States has increased from nearly 28,000 in 2007 to nearly 127,000 in 2017, and research has suggested the potential for the development of shale resources to affect nearby stream ecosystems. However, the ability to generalize current studies is limited by the small geographic scope as well as limited breadth and integration o
Review of studies of composition, toxicology and human health impacts of wastewater from unconventional oil and gas development from shale
13C and 15N NMR identification of product compound classes from aqueous and solid phase photodegradation of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene
Geophysical mapping of plume discharge to surface water at a crude oil spill site: Inversion versus machine learning
Examining the extraction efficiency of petroleum-derived dissolved organic matter in contaminated groundwater plumes
Effects of organic ligands and background electrolytes on barite dissolution
Predicting attenuation of salinized surface- and groundwater-resources from legacy energy development in the Prairie Pothole Region
The Energy Lifecycle Integrated Science Team focuses on the potential for contaminant exposures in the environment that might originate from energy resource activities including, extraction, production, transportation, storage, extraction, waste management and restoration. Perceived health risks to humans and other organisms will be distinguished from actual risks, if any. If actual risks are identified this project will inform how to economically and effectively minimize risk by providing scientific data and understandings about the environmental transport, fate, and exposure pathways of contaminants. Emphasis will be placed on addressing these issues on public and Department of Interior managed lands.
The United States is one of the largest users of energy, consuming annually about one-quarter of the energy resources produced in the world. The energy industry and government regulators work to provide energy resources to the public safely and effectively. Management of energy byproducts such as waste materials (including both solid and liquid wastes) from oil and gas development are a critical part of that work. However, spills, leaks, and other factors can create pathways for contaminants to enter the environment and result in exposures to humans and biota.
The associated health effects of specific spills have not been demonstrated in many cases, yet the perception of risk can drive action by industry and regulators. Hydrologists, chemists, biologists, and geologists on the Team conduct studies outside the mission of other federal agencies, by assessing actual versus perceived health effects to humans and biota due to exposures to energy production materials in the environment. This effort utilizes a watershed-and aquifer-based interdisciplinary science approach, providing a "big picture" that helps show where energy development activities are causing adverse health impacts on biota due to environmental contaminant exposures, as well as where they are not causing impacts. With this information in hand industry, land managers and other decision makers are able to balance the critical need for energy with further action, if any, to minimize health risks associated with energy production materials in the environment.
The USGS Energy Lifecycle Integrated Science Team (IST), a part of the Environmental Health Program, conducts research on potential contaminant exposures in the environment that might originate from the life cycle of energy resources. Their research is completed in laboratories, at targeted field sites, and in watersheds across the Nation to collectively deliver science on exposures and risks to wildlife, humans, ecosystems, and water resources. Potential contaminant releases are associated with transportation, storage, extraction, and management of energy-related products and wastes.
The team provides science to support balanced utilization and protection of our Nation’s resources. The Team is combining their findings on sources, fate, transport, and degradation of the contaminants with an understanding of the exposure and effects on wildlife and humans for a One-Health approach that recognizes the inextricable connections between the physical and living environment.
The Energy IST is unique in that they bring together geochemists, microbiologists, ecologists, toxicologists, geophysicists, hydrologists, and modelers along with remote sensing capabilities with more than 60 scientists from 16science centers across USGS. This breadth of research abilities allows the Team to address complex nationwide questions related to the lifecycle of energy resources that would be out of reach for individual and small groups of scientists The value of their research is enhanced by the active participation of stakeholders.
The Team Aims to:
- Identify Sources of Contaminants from Energy-Related Materials
- Identify Potential Pathways of Contaminants to/in the Environment
- Determine Toxicity and Risks to Organisms from Energy-Associated Materials in the Environment
- Evaluate Environmental Responses and Recovery from Energy Lifecycle Activities
- Evaluate Reuse Potential of Unconventional Oil and Gas (UOG) Wastes
Current Science Questions and Activities
- Materials from oil and gas (OG) extraction may contain toxic or radioactive elements from the geologic formation, additives such as biocides used during OG development, and products of natural degradation. What is the composition of the materials generated, the potential pathways to the environment, the mode-of-action and the effects, if any, on receptor organisms from exposure to these constituents?
- Energy development occurs nationwide on public and private lands at scales ranging from town to regional to state-level development. This work is focused on the regional, and especially watershed or aquifer scale, energy-resource associated releases (for example spills, pipeline breaks) to the environment. Are there contaminant exposures and actual, not perceived, public health concerns throughout the watershed or underlying aquifers downstream or downgradient of the release?
- Releases of energy-associated materials to the environment can occur at various time scales thereby altering biogeochemistry and potential health effects on fish and wildlife as well as contaminant exposures to humans. Is persistence related to actual health effects?
Selected Science Feature Article Listed Below.
See the publications tab for a complete list of publications
Below are data or web applications associated with this project.
Geophysical data from the unnamed lake at the National Crude Oil Spill Fate and Natural Attenuation Research Site, Bemidji, MN (ver. 3.0, May 2022)
Chemistry of waters collected in the Wolf Creek and Buffalo Creek watersheds in West Virginia in 2016
Chloride in water, metals in sediment and amphibian tissues and amphibian capture information from wetlands in the Williston Basin of Montana and North Dakota, 2015-2017
Acute toxicity of sodium chloride and potassium chloride to a unionid mussel (Lampsilis siliquoidea) in water exposures-Data
Historical data sets including inorganic and organic chemistry of water, oil, and sediments, aquifer hydraulic conductivity, and sediment grain size distribution at the National Crude Oil Spill Fate and Natural Attenuation Research Site near Bemidji, Minn
Weathering of Oil in a Surficial Aquifer, Bemidji, MN
Dataset of trace dissolved hydrocarbons in surface water and groundwater in North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia between 2014 and 2017
Microbiology of the greater Bravo Dome region
Common hydraulic fracturing fluid additives alter the structure and function of anaerobic microbial communities
Arsenic and Iron data for mass balance calculations to investigate arsenic cycling in a petroleum plume
Partial release of iron, alkalinity, and oxygen data from Bemidji crude oil site, Minnesota 1993-2016
Widespread Legacy Brine Contamination from Oil Shales Reduces Survival of Chorus Frog Larvae-Data
Below are publications associated with this project.
Compositional analysis of formation water geochemistry and microbiology of commercial and carbon dioxide-rich wells in the southwestern United States
Factors affecting sampling strategies for design of an effects‐directed analysis for endocrine‐active chemicals
Organic compounds in produced waters from the Bakken Formation and Three Forks Formation in the Williston Basin, North Dakota
Groundwater quality and geochemistry of West Virginia’s southern coal fields
Acute and chronic toxicity of sodium nitrate and sodium sulfate to several freshwater organisms in water-only exposures
Shale gas development has limited effects on stream biology and geochemistry in a gradient-based, multiparameter study in Pennsylvania
The number of horizontally drilled shale oil and gas wells in the United States has increased from nearly 28,000 in 2007 to nearly 127,000 in 2017, and research has suggested the potential for the development of shale resources to affect nearby stream ecosystems. However, the ability to generalize current studies is limited by the small geographic scope as well as limited breadth and integration o