Emissions of organic compounds from produced water ponds I: Characteristics and speciation

Emissions of organic compounds from produced water ponds II: Evaluation of flux chamber measurements with inverse-modeling techniques

“…Mansfield et al (2018) showed that organic compound emissions estimated by the WATER9 wastewater treatment model (EPA 1994(EPA , 2001 are about 1 order of magnitude higher than flux chamber measurements. Flux chambers mask the effect of external wind speed (Mansfield et al 2018;Parker et al 2013): The chamber used in this work covered an area of about 0.13 m 2 , and the mixing fan in the chamber created an effective wind speed of less than 0.5 m sec −1 (Lyman et al 2018), which was lower than the measured wind speed near the water surface. Since air-liquid partitioning of most compounds depends on air turbulence, higher wind speeds lead to higher emissions, and we expect that the flux chamber measurement is lower than the actual emissions.…”

“…S9 had higher organic compound concentrations than many of the other sampling locations even though it was distant from and not directly downwind of the produced water pond but was instead more directly downwind of liquid storage tanks at the facility. C2 and C3 compounds made up a higher percentage of total organics measured at S9, whereas emissions from produced water tend to be dominated by C6 and heavier compounds (Lyman et al 2018), providing more evidence that these locations were influenced by storage tanks, not produced water emissions. We excluded S9 from inverse modeling.…”

“…Measurement methods for meteorological parameters and evacuated canister measurements of organic compounds are provided by Lyman et al (2018). In summary, 163 flux chamber measurements were conducted at eight facilities in fall, winter, spring, and summer during 2015-2016 in the Uintah Basin, among which concurrent canister measurements for inverse modeling were performed for one landfarm and three produced water pond facilities.…”

“…We analyzed the canisters for 58 organic compounds, including C2-C11 hydrocarbons and methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol. Analytical methods are described by Lyman et al (2018). For inverse modeling with AERMOD (American Meteorological Society/U.S.…”

“…Field measurement campaigns using a flux chamber technique have been performed to measure organic compound emissions from produced water ponds in the Uintah Basin of eastern Utah. Lyman et al (2018) discuss these measurements in detail, and Mansfield et al (2018) develop masstransfer coefficients and perform other computational analyses of this data set. Steady-state flux chamber systems (also known as open-chamber or activechamber systems as opposed to non-steady-state or passive-chamber systems) provide accurate measurements at the point of sampling, but they cover a limited area and are prone to altering environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, pressure, wind).…”