On November 8, 2011 at approximately 0830, a lightning strike on a 1000 barrel gun barrel tank at the Greentide Water Disposal Facility located at Boyd, Wise County, Texas resulted in an explosion and fire. This facility performs deep well injection of produced waters from oil and gas operations. At the time of the explosion, the facility was not-operating due to extensive upgrades that had been and were being conducted. The facility consisted of 7 storage tanks and equipment along with a water disposal well. The facility had residual materials (produced water and crude oil) within the tankage and water treatment chemicals (scale inhibitor and sufactants) within the impacted containment area. The fire completely destroyed the storage and pumping operations of the facility. The estimated volume of materials impacted by the fire were 40 barrels of crude oil, unknown amount of produced water, and 80 gallons each of a Scale Inhibitor and Surfactant. These materials were either burned in the resultant fire or remain within secondary containment.
The EPA became aware of the incident at approximately 1000 hrs and conducted followup activties with TCEQ and local Fire Officials prior to dispatching a response team. The EPA along with air monitoring equipment arrived on-scene at 1300 hrs and EPA was informed that the fire had been extinguished at approximately 1220 hrs. Upon arrival, the EPA observed no smoldering and no releases of material beyond secondary containment. EPA did not conduct any air monitoring or sampling as the fire was no longer burning. Additionally, EPA is not aware of any air monitoring or sampling activities conducted by any other party relative to this response.
