Recent News
Viruses notwithstanding, I will continue to charge for most low risk properties a fee of $1500 for a Phase I ESA which also includes the database, mileage and expenses. Also included is my research of a 50 year chain of title meaning no need to expense the $350-500 fee for an abstracted chain from a title company.
Also, I do lunch discussions concerning the Phase I ESA, so please call to make arrangements for me to come to your place and provide your people lunch and answer any questions you may have.
Flowlines vs Pipelines and “Active” USTs
Flowlines vs Pipelines and “Active” USTsIn the Permian Basin as in other areas around the state, the recent oil boom due to shale horizontal drilling has resulted in a lot of outlying areas of undeveloped lands being converted to new residential neighborhoods, offices/shopping centers, oil field offices/equipment yards, drilling pads etc. These lands may also have vertical oil and gas wells currently producing and many lands have had plugged and abandoned oil and gas wells (P&A). A horizontal well will be drilled with long laterals often under cities but contain their drilling operations to one large “drilling/production pad” and thus there is no need for flowlines to connect the well head to the oil storage tanks.
Vertical wells are usually connected a ways apart to an off-site storage tank by flowlines. Flowlines are actually part of the rights to produce oil or gas as owned by the mineral estate and called a lease appurtenance. They can either be laid on the surface or buried, but these lines are NOT surveyed, so the surface owner must locate these lines, mark them and work with the operator for best placement.
Now pipeline easements are different because they are “sales” line and take the gas or oil product to market. They must be surveyed and the pipeline easement or ROW deed is executed only by the surface owner and not part of the leasehold estate.
When commissioned with the Phase I ESA report, part of my instigation is to alert the client as to any on-site or adjacent lands with respect to oil production facilities, past or present. A good, recent survey of the subject tract will note all recorded pipeline easements and ROW deeds. A survey will not show any flowlines, and old P&A well sites may be found using the Texas Railroad Commission mapping tools. While most P&A sites are not a high risk, it is prudent to know for where the old pad sites are and where any old mud pits might have been located, especially if the tract will be used for residential development.
USTs: Database Says Both “Active” and “Tanks Removed”?
On a similar note to the old P&A wells are tracts where there have been petroleum underground storage tanks (USTs), the environmental database may list an old registered UST site on the subject parcel. Remember what I said in the first newsletter- that all environmental events will remain in the database even if the site has been completely remediated. Let’s say your parcel has no surface appearance of tanks, but the database lists a UST on your site as “active”. But as you dig deeper into the details of the event, you note that the tanks were removed 20 years ago! What gives? The most probable answer is that there is a record of the tank(s) removal, but a closure letter (following the TCEQ inspection to affirm no soil or potential ground water contamination while the site was open) or other letter stating “no further action needed”, was not issued for the event by the TCEQ.
Because this type UST listing in the database may be cause to define a Recognized Environmental Condition on the tract, most environmental firms will strongly suggest a deep coring for soil samples “just to be sure” that there are no tanks or soil contamination. But if there has been no further reporting of any groundwater contamination of fuel into nearby water wells, then I would suggest that there is little risk concerning a UST (much less one leaking petroleum) after 20 years or so and that the tanks have, in fact, been removed and thus no soil sampling/coring needed.
ESA Terms to Know:
AAI – “All Appropriate Inquiries”
The AAI is the process of evaluating a property’s environmental conditions and assessing potential liability for any contamination for the innocent landowners defense and must be followed for an AAI qualified Phase I ESA report, per the 2002 Brownfields Amendments to CERCLA.
Real Estate Transaction Screens and the SBA Environmental Questionnaire
These type reports no longer qualify for CERCLA liability.