Has there been any attempt to locate abandoned oil & gas production brine/mud pits?
There have been shallow ground water problems (shallow subsurface – 30 to 40 feet deep) associated with these pits. According to the pit regulations of 1990, there are about 12,000 of these pits. If any pits are discovered in source water protection areas they will be inventoried and included in the database. We are not aware of an existing database of pit locations. The Department of Natural Resources regulations require pits to be registered so there are records on file. No latitude or longitude data exists but they are usually located in the vicinity of oil wells, which have locational data associated with them. The data is not in digital format, it is only in hard files. • Will an attempt be made to identify seismic shotholes? How are they regulated? We spoke with Mr. Larry LeBlanc of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries regarding this matter. He is in charge of the section in that agency which issues letters of permission to companies to conduct seismic surveys. There are only
