Overcoming Challenges for Reclamation Success

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Overcoming Challenges for Reclamation Success

• Cindy Pappas
• Ed Redente, Ph.D.
• Richard Bell

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Importance of Reclamation

• Heightened focus on reclamation and, most
  importantly, reclamation success
• 1. State and other stakeholders perception
  that wildlife
• habitat and therefore hunting
  are being adversely
• impacted by the lack of habitat
  restoration
• 2. BLMs own assessment and determination that
  
• reclamation has not been
  successful is driving the
• development of a standard
  reclamation planning template
• 3. BLM is including disturbance cap-based
  alternatives in a
• number of EISs

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Reclamation as a Part of NEPA Compliance

• Key component of mitigation either as
  ACEPMs/Design Features or as COAs
• Required by 43 CFR 3000 and 36 CFR 228, Onshore
  OG Orders, and Notices to Lessees the Gold
  Book
• Until recently, reclamation planning for OG
  projects have been proposed and implemented with
  varying levels of commitment of science or
  evaluation for success

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Successful Reclamation

• BLM is now including criteria or thresholds for
  success in terms of a percent cover and species
  diversity within a specified period of years
• Other stakeholders such as WGF are coming up
  with similar guidance on reclamation planning
  including criteria for success
• Are these criteria for success achievable? Are
  they science based? Do they account for the
  dynamic and variable nature of the environment?

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Disturbance Cap

• BLM has included and will likely continue to
  include a Disturbance Cap Alternative, especially
  EISs
• Applied reclamation that is determined to be
  successful, both interim and final, during the
  life of the project by the BLM/stakeholders
  allows the operator to subtract the
  successfully reclaimed acreage from the project
  total so to keep the acreage of disturbance below
  the cap
• How can an operator plan and go forward with a
  project whose development over time will be
  subject to accepted success for timely
  reclamation in challenging environments?

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Reclamation ScienceThe State of the Art

• The knowledge base for the reclamation of
  disturbed lands in the western U.S. is extensive
• Reseeding of millions of acres following the dust
  bowl of the 1930s
• Improvements of millions of acres of arid and
  semiarid rangelands in the 1960s1980s following
  more than a half a century of rangeland
  exploitation

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Reclamation ScienceThe State of the Art

• Conversion of millions of acres of marginal farm
  land to perennial grasslands under the USDA
  Conservation Reserve Program beginning in 1985
• Reclamation of tens of thousands of acres of
  mined lands, especially following SMCRA and
  rigorous state rules and regulations governing
  mine land reclamation

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Reclamation ScienceThe State of the Art

• Relevance to Oil and Gas Reclamation
• The knowledge that has been accumulated from
  decades of reclamation work in the western U.S.
  has direct application to the OG industry
• No need to reinvent to wheel for OG reclamation

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Reclamation ScienceThe State of the Art

• Relevance to Oil and Gas Reclamation (continued)
• Although some of the knowledge is being applied
  to OG, much of it is not being used
• In general, reclamation has not been a high
  priority for OG projects
• The effectiveness of achieving reclamation
  success needs to increase if OG development is
  going to be allowed to continue

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Physical Challenges
• Extremes in Texture
• Infiltration
• Hydraulic conductivity
• Water holding capacity
• Cation exchange capacity
• Soil Compaction
• Too much compaction results in the loss of
  macropores, runoff increases, potential for
  erosion increases, and root growth is restricted.

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Physical Challenges (continued)
• Rock Fragments
• Reduction in root volume
• Decline in TWH capacity
• Reduction in total soil nutrients
• Elevated surface temperature (higher heat
  capacity than soil)
• Poor seed soil contact in seedbed

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Physical Challenges (continued)
• Erosion
• Major limiting factor to restoration success
• Water (sheet and rill/gully)
• Wind

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Physical Challenges (continued)
• Precipitation
• Precipitation is limiting factor for plant
  establishment
• Plant establishment limited by frequency and
  duration of rainfall events
• Rainfall often results in successful germination,
  but frequency of events does not support
  long-term establishment

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Chemical Challenges
• Soil pH
• Extremes in pH are problematic for plant growth
  (lt5.0 or gt9.0)
• Soil pH is not typically a problem with oil gas
  reclamation
• Soil salinity (EC gt 4 mmhos/cm)
• Effects plants ability to take up water
• Effect is more prevalent during germination and
  early seedling growth

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Chemical Challenges
• Soil sodicity
• Deterioration of soil structure (defloculation or
  dispersion of soil particles results in
  restricted water movement into soil, lower
  aeration, lower seedling emergence, and lower
  root elongation)

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Environmental Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Biological Challenges
• Invasive Species
• Competition from highly competition invasive
  plants (noxious and non-noxious weeds)
• Grazing Animals
• Over utilization by wildlife and domestic
  livestock

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Other Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Improper Reclamation Techniques
• Inadequate seedbed preparation
• Poor seed-soil contact
• Lack of safe sites for seed germination
  establishment
• Seed distribution not uniform
• Planting seed too deep
• Seeding rates too low
• Seeding wrong time of the year

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Other Challenges to Reclamation Success

• Improper Species Selection and Seed Mixture
  Composition
• Species not adapted to site conditions
• Cultivar or variety within a species not adapted
• Use of species that have seed dormancy issues
• Use of species that are difficult to establish or
  very slow growing
• Formulating seed mixtures that over emphasize
  species that are difficult to establish or are
  highly aggressive

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Overcoming Challenges for Reclamation Success

• Select species adapted to soil texture
• Eliminate soil compaction by ripping or
  scarifying
• Rock fragments are difficult to remove, if
  percent is high, then considering adding
  amendments to increase WHC
• Control erosion with mulch and reduce slope angle
  and length
• Cover saline soils or use only salt tolerant
  species
• Cover sodic soils or use only sodium tolerant
  species
• Control invasive species

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Overcoming Challenges for Reclamation Success

• Use of fencing to exclude large herbivores
• Rough seedbed is superior to a smooth seedbed
• Implement quality controls during seeding
• Seed prior to the period of greatest
  precipitation or period of most reliable
  precipitation (this varies by region)
• Select species and cultivars that are adapted to
  site conditions.
• If seed supplies are coming from native
  collections, only use seed to that has been
  collected from environments similar to where
  planting will occur

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Overcoming Challenges forReclamation Success

• Avoid or minimize the use of slow growing species
• Avoid or minimize the use of species with seed
  dormancy issues
• Formulate seed mixtures based on the ecological
  characteristics of the species
• Implement monitoring programs to measure
  reclamation success

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Measuring Reclamation Success

• Short-term (Interim) Reclamation
• Difficult to define success by current standards
• Thresholds based on percent cover and restricted
  timelines fail to address environmental
  variability
• Proper planning, implementation, and monitoring
  should be basis for determining short-term
  success
• Final Reclamation
• Scientifically based standard that accounts for
  the dynamic and variable nature of the
  environment in which the disturbance has occurred

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Measuring Reclamation Success
Successful reclamation can be achieved!

• Making intelligent decisions
• Drawing on knowledge base we already have
• Establishing realistic goals and thresholds
• Avoiding costly errors

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Questions?