Using Remote-Sensing Technology (Color Infrared) To Locate Oil Spills At Lake Oologah, Oklahoma

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Lake Oologah area of northeastern Oklahoma contains a large, mature, and declining oil field that has been active since the early 1900s. Many wells have been abandoned, but most of the abandoned wells have not been plugged or maintained according to state requirements. As a result, these wells are leaking crude oil to surrounding soils or directly into navigable waters of the United States. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) and Oklahoma Energy Resources Board (OERB) have been working together to address the substantial environmental threats posed by hundreds of leaking oil wells at the approximately 26,000-acre Lake Oologah site. Based on the large area and insufficient well location data, EPA requested that Ecology and Environment, Inc. (E&E) develop an innovative method to identify well and potential surface spill locations. E&E used a state-of-the-art remote-sensing color infrared (CIR) aerial survey to collect digital aerial imagery. The historical aerial data were reviewed to refine the locations of potentially leaking wells identified by the remote-sensing technology. The CIR data were orthorectified to prepare topologically correct maps and further processed using a Geographic Information System (GIS) and thematic mapping software to identify oil-contaminated areas. To confirm the CIR data and overall technical approach developed for the project, EPA and E&E performed ground truthing for a small portion of the site to identify leaking wells and stressed vegetation. Following ground truthing, a specific color spectrum was assigned to these features, and the data were processed to predict the locations of oil contamination sources throughout the site. Based on these results, an overall aerial assessment of site contamination is being developed to identify potentially leaking wells and minimize labor-intensive ground truthing efforts.