Living in Harmony—Gas Production and the Attwater's Prairie Chicken

Abstract

Abstract Over a century ago, one million Attwater's prairie chickens graced the coastal grasslands of Texas and Louisiana. Today, less than 1% of their native habitat remains and in 2009, it was estimated that only 90 remained in the wild at three different locations. The remaining nearly 260 Attwater's prairie chickens are in captive rearing facilities throughout Texas. One of the last remaining locations where the Attwater's prairie chicken is found in the wild is the Texas City Prairie Preserve that was set aside near Texas City and is owned by The Nature Conservancy (TNC). The Conservancy has leased oil and gas production on the Preserve and works to balance production with the conservation and recovery of the Attwater's prairie chicken. The Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) is leading an industry consortium effort, the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems (EFD) Program, to investigate the development of cost-effective, low impact drilling and production systems and to reduce the environmental tradeoffs associated with operations. The work originated in 2005 when co-funding was obtained by the U.S. Department of Energy and industry. Additional funding for the effort was obtained through the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). The paper documents how HARC and TNC partnered to investigate if and how noise from production operations affects the Attwater's prairie chicken. An electrical submersible pump (ESP), powered by a 500 kW diesel electric generator, was installed in a gas well to increase production. Attwater's prairie chicken locations and movements were monitored prior to, during the workover, and following the installation of the pump (operation of the diesel generator). Noise measurements for the operation of the diesel generator were recorded. Locations of Attwater's prairie chickens were compared to the before, during and after time periods relative to the ESP installation.