Produced water spill at R pad

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In an incident unrelated to the oil spill from the Lisburne field pipeline, about 7,000 gallons of produced water were spilled from a 34-inch produced water flow line inside a manifold building on the Prudhoe Bay R pad on Dec. 3. The cause of the spill is under investigation.

About 5,000 gallons of the spilled water remained inside the building, with the remainder of the water escaping to the gravel pad, according to a Dec. 3 situation report. BP was using a vacuum truck to collect the water in the building and planned to use a variety of techniques to recover the water from the gravel outside, the report said. The company estimated that about 3,000 square feet of the snow-covered gravel pad were impacted.

—Alan Bailey