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BAKKEN NEWS Coal Country,


This reserve pit at a drilling pad near Tioga contains drilling waste mixed with fl y ash purchased from Red River Supply, a Williston company. Fly ash is commonly used to bind soft drilling cuttings into a hardened mix for burial. LAUREN DONOVAN/Tribune


By LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune


kota, where coal meets oil, that leads to thousands of pits out in the oil patch. Burning lignite in power plants creates


a fl y ash residue that turns out is perfect and relatively cheap for solidifying drill- ing waste buried in pits next to oil wells. Sales of fl y ash are turning into a


decent source of revenue for power plants out in Coal Country. Not only do power producers not have to pay to dis- pose of the ash oil companies pay good money to take it off their hands, mix it into drill cuttings and bury it for them. That intersection could become a


parting of the ways with fl y ash’s poten- tial to be labeled a hazardous waste by the federal Environmental Protection Agen- cy. It’s currently labeled as a solid waste. Even an exemption for benefi cial


There’s an intersection in North Da-


souri River, about 70 percent of the fl y ash is sold into the oil patch, some louvered into those white 1-ton plas- tic bags also used for hauling fracture treatment sand and ceramic sand, some loaded bulk into pneumatic tankers. Jim McKay,


ity supervisor, said sales to the oil fi eld increased recently and the plant hasn’t hauled any ash to its own dis- posal pit for the past two months. In fact, his company is building a


new storage building next to the fl y ash bagging operation so it can build up a reserve inventory. Stanton Station is the only utility that bags fl y ash. Others, like Basin Electric Cooperative’s Antelope Valley Station, make it available in bulk.


use of fl y ash probably wouldn’t hold the two together. Besides the fl y ash in oil pits, about a half million tons of fl y ash from the Coal Creek Station at Underwood are sold as a substi- tute for Portland cement in concrete. Al Christianson calls himself the


“face” of fl y ash, having been instru- mental in managing its develop- ment into a lucrative byproduct for his company, Great River Energy. Now, nearly every last ton made at Coal


Fly ash is being turned into a solidifying agent for drilling waster pits


Creek is sold into the cement industry. Great River doesn’t have any


fl y ash left from Coal Creek to sell to the oil fi elds, but has some sup- ply from its smaller Stanton Station.


would change its mindset about fl y ash sales if the EPA makes its move. “If we have to make a left turn with some loads of fl y ash (because it’s haz- ardous) and a right turn with other loads because it’s OK (for benefi cial use), I can guarantee we’ll be making all left turns. Utilities are risk-averse. We have the deep pockets, and if they’re going to sue someone, it’s always going to be the utili-


Christianson said Great River Stanton Station util- At that plant, located on the Mis-


ties. What if a truck overturns out there on the highway?” Christianson said. For now, though, fl y ash sales are boom-


ing right along with all else in the oil patch. Tavish Vestal, whose family owns Red


River Supply of Williston sells up to 800 tons daily of bagged fl y ash to oil compa- nies. Many are in a hurry to get pits cov- ered before winter to avoid pit runoff if there’s another snowy winter as predicted. He said it’s not a fun part of his job because supply is limited, buying is very competitive and demand is grow- ing. He’s had to resort fi nding fl y ash in other states like Montana and Wyoming. Fly ash from South Dakota isn’t allowed in pits here as it’s slightly radioactive. “It’s gotten to be such a nasty market


River has had its fl y ash tested and approved for use by the Health De- partment. “I just hope everyone else has done the same thing,” he said. In Coal Country, the fl y ash sales


meet Oil Patch


These trailers hold up to 24 bags of fl y ash, weighing 1 ton each, and each pit typically absorbs from 100 to 250 bags, or up to 10 truck loads.


LAUREN DONOVAN/Tribune


to be in, in the last few years. It’s pretty ruthless. Somebody takes them on a golf trip to Florida and it cuts us out of three loads,” Vestal said. “A lot of customers buy it and resell it. It’s too fast-paced.” Vestal said he pays up to


$100 a ton and resells it for $225 a ton,


ash it buys because of customer preference. “We had to make a choice between bulk and bags, and we just said the whole thing is moving to bags,” Vestal said. In an illustration of how fast things


His company started bagging all the fl y bagged and delivered.


market is dominated by a compa- ny called Headwaters Inc., the same company that joined Great River En- ergy to build the ethanol plant co-lo- cated with Great River’s Coal Creek Station power plant in Underwood. Headwaters’ area manager Jim Glass said he secured contracts with some Coal Country utilities for sales of about 150,000 tons of fl y ash into the oil fi eld every year for about $30 a ton raw. He said the price has been slow- ly escalating along with demand. That’s a small fraction of the 3.2


million tons of fl y ash produced in Coal Country, but Glass said he’s working with other utilities to se- cure additional fl y ash contracts. He estimates there’s a potential for


are moving, he said he only learned a few months ago that the fl y ash has to be registered with the state Health Department even though it’s been used around the oil patch for years. Christianson refers to some sup- pliers as “ash cowboys,” and said Great


up to 400,000 tons, since oil companies typically need anywhere from 100 tons to 250 tons per pit to bind the squishy drill cuttings into a hardened mix before dumping in the lined pits. Some 1,800 new wells will be drilled this year alone, according to Department of Mineral Resources spokeswoman Alison Ritter. “Then all the fl y ash going into our oil fi elds will be coming out of North Dakota, with very little com- ing out of Montana,”


“It’s a perfect application for this.” (Reach reporter Lauren


at 220-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)


Glass said. Donovan


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