Newsletter title

April 2015

In This Edition

 

Docent Reminders

—Kay Krebbs

Here are a three things to remember when on duty at the Visitor’s Center:

  1. Please use the new number system on sale tickets, and check prices as some have changed.
  2. If you open the shop again after having closed for the day, please fill out the paper and close it again once business is concluded. DO NOT leave it for the next day.
  3. Please verify that the computer is turned off before you depart.

Docent Reorientation: 21 February 2015

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

Again it was a lovely day on the prairie; by afternoon, the sun was shining and temperatures were in the 70s on Saturday, 14 March 2014. Karen Cruce convened the second docent reorientation at 10 a.m. Thirty-nine persons attended the meeting, two Nature Conservancy staff with eighteen new and nineteen returning docents. Another good turnout as you can see in the panorama below; any discontinuities in the picture are due to edge-blending across the joins of three pictures.

Docent Reorientation Attendees

In this report, I will only address the differences from the last meeting, which means I won’t repeat the administrative material that can be found in our February 2015 edition.

Starting a round-robin of introductions, Karen said that this is her fifth year as a docent and her first as the leader of the reorientation committee and participation on the Docent Council. Last year, the Docent Council was reinstated to help spread the responsibility and effort of running the program. We were gratified to discover that the Docent Council has enjoyed significant success in its new incarnation.

Agenda

Karen drew our attention to the agenda, saying that she will be watching the time to ensure that we remain on schedule; she pointed out the principal contacts listed on the back side.

Docent Reorientation Agenda

 

Science in Action: Brine Contamination in Surface & Sub-surface Waters

Tallie Craigo

Karen introduced Tallie Craigo who is a graduate student at the University of Tulsa working on her MSc. degree in Geoscience. Tallie’s thesis work investigates brine contamination in the surface and sub-surface waters of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve.

Brine is a significant problem associated with oil and gas exploration and production on the Preserve. Tallie’s work is a continuation of that done by Dr. Kerry Sublette at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Sublette’s February 2004 presentation to Preserve Docents is reprinted below. Her presentation outline consisted in:

In the 1.5-million acres of Osage County, the mineral rights are wholly owned by the Osage Nation. Oil and gas activity is managed for the Osage by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has no jurisdiction. This arrangement with the BIA has existed since the Osage were moved from their ancestral lands in Kansas by the Federal Government. The 39,000 acres of the Preserve are owned and managed by The Nature Conservancy.

Presentation Overview

Tallie is doing this study because of the recent increases in oil and gas exploration on the Preserve that has resulted in increases in the chlorides detected in the water at fish monitoring stations. Another aspect of her work is to find out if there have been any developments from past research projects.

Ojectives of this study are: (1) to take seven or eight quarterly water samples from the Preserve to define the trends in dissolved salts and chloride levels; (2) to determine if the elevated brine levels are due to new oil production or to sub-surface brine flow; and (3) to collect soil samples from past brine spill remediation projects to determine the degree of soil recovery.

Geology of the Preserve is late Pennsyslvanian, dating from around 300-million years ago. Rock is either limestone or sandstone. In past ages, the area has been inundated by shallow seas that are responsible for the deposition of dead sea creatures, the shells of which became limestone; organic material collected that was eventually converted into concentrated oil hydrocarbons. Exploration beginning in 1897 discovered fourteen oil fields below the Preserve, identified by the green areas in the slide below. Within the boundaries of the Preserve, as many as four hundred oil wells were bored; about a quarter of these are still active and some have been hydraulically fractured by newer horizontal drilling technology.

Oil Production on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

A problem with extracting oil from the Preserve is that it produces large volumes of brine that must be disposed, usually by reinjection into the oil reservoir. Because the brine is so corrosive to steel piping, there is always a high risk of leakage during transport and storage. Brine and oil spills scar the landscape, mainly because the brine kills vegetation and the root systems that bind the soil together. Historically, regulation of oil and gas activity has been lax in Osage County, which has resulted in accumulated damage to the environment similar to that shown in the slide below.

A Recent Oil-Brine Spill

After 118 years of poorly regulated oil and gas extraction activity on the Preserve, problems with pollution are inevitable, especially with the older wells that were bored using cable-tool drilling technology that did not make the uniform bores produced by rotary drilling. Compromised well casings, no casings, and improperly plugged wells allow oil and brine to escape. Brine also gains access to the surface and rock fracture systems when the water table rises.

Brine scars have been visible from the air since the 1930s. Tallie showed one of the worst examples at the western edge of the Preserve, reproduced in the picture below.

Brine Affected Areas & Wells

Much of the early damage was due to the available technology of the era. Re-injection of brine is a more modern process. In the early days of oil exploration, brine was dumped in brine-pits to evaporate naturally, leaving a salt crust on the surface and a plume of highly saline soil below and around the pit; size of the saline plume is dependent on the porosity of the ground in the area.

Tallie’s thesis project consists in the major activities listed here:

Water Sample Locations

Tallie showed where she is sampling the water from the creeks and streams that traverse the Preserve in the slide above and a three-dimensional terrain map below, in which color represents elevation — green is low; brown is high. In the slide below, the red dots represent the sample sites.

3D Elevation Map

Some rounds of sampling are now complete for both water and soil, summarized below:

Nematodes are microscopic communities of worms that live within the soil. They are an indicator species that reveal the health of the soil by their presence in number. Tallie’s current nematode sampling summary is reproduced below.

May 214 Soil Samples

Salinity is shown in the slide below, from samples taken May 2014; a truer picture of the salinity will emerge as more data is collected under different flow conditions at different times of the year.

May 214 Water Samples

Electrical conductivity of the terrain is a more direct measurement of ground salinity; the more saline the ground, the more conductive it becomes. Conductivity is a function of the terrain salinity and moisture levels. These tests enable the researchers to develop a salinity profile 200 meters wide on the surface and vertically down to 100 meters depth.

Ground Conductivity Tests

Tallie’s team will be using these conductivity tests to find out how much brine is flowing through the fracture systems of the rock. These fractures occur naturally and have nothing to do with the hydraulic fracturing of the oil-bearing strata, though it is possible for the two kinds of fracture systems to connect.

Both limestone and sandstone are soft porous rocks, susceptible to erosion by water that is acidic. Through geologic time, small fissures in the rock become widened naturally. The network of fractures can’t be seen at ground level, only becoming visible from the air as you can see in Tallie’s slide below.

Fracture Systems of the Tallgrass Prairie

Some convenient outcrops provide a nice cross-sectional view of the facturing, along the banks of the creeks where the water has lowered the stream-bed by erosion.

Cross-section of Fracture Patterns

The objective of Tallie’s study is to reach definitive conclusions about the source and movement of brine on the Preserve thus:

At this point, Tallie answered questions from the audience and then we moved on to the other parts of the reorientation that were the same as reported last month.

During preparation of this report, I downloaded the 1987 proceedings of the International Symposium on Subsurface Injection of Oilfield Brines that was sponsored by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Underground Injection Practices Council Research Foundation.

On page 578 a section begins that describes several methods for locating abandoned wells. Beginning on page 598 is a section that describes the Ada Pressure Test that was designed to test the mechanical integrity of wells. Since December 30, 1984, the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region VI has been implementing the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program in Osage County, Oklahoma. There are approximately 3,500 in the county that must demonstrate mechanical integrity before 1 January 1990 or be plugged.

In 1986 thirteen wells in Osage County were tested. Five wells passed and eight failed, a significant 61-percent failure rate. Here’s the first part of the introduction to the section, giving insight into the technology associated with, and management of, well-bore integrity:

In EPA’s Region VI, primacy for the UIC program has been delegated to all five of the states in the Region (Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas).

The Osage Nation consists of the entire county of Osage in Oklahoma (Figure 1) and as required by the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974 (PL93-523), Region VI has direct implementation of UIC Program on Indian Lands. Accordingly, the Osage UIC regulations (40 CFR Part 147, Subpart GGG) were established and became effective December 30, 1984. These regulations require that all injection wells demonstrate mechanical integrity by December 30, 1989 and at least once every five years thereafter. Osage County Oklahoma has approximately 3,500 injection wells ranging in depth from 500 to 3,000 feet. In order for these wells to have mechanical integrity it must be demonstrated that:

  1. There is no significant fluid movement into an underground source of drinking water (USDW) through vertical channels adjacent to the wellbore, and
  2. there is no significant leak in the casing, tubing or packer.

The demonstration of (1) above can be through any of the following:

  1. Cementing records (need not be reviewed every five years);
  2. Tracer survey (in appropriate hydrogeologic settings; must be used in conjunction with at least one of the other alternatives);
  3. Temperature log;
  4. Noise log; or
  5. Other tests deemed acceptable by the Regional Administrator.

This demonstration is usually accomplished through a file review of Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) records. The BIA has regulated the oil and gas production in Osage County almost since the first discovery of oil in the county and maintain a comprehensive file on all well completions dating back to the early 1900’s.

The demonstration of (2) above can be through any of the following:

  1. Performance of a pressure test of the casing/tubing annulus to at least 200 psi, or the pressure specified by the Regional Administrator, to be repeated thereafter, at five year intervals, for the life of the well (pressure tests conducted during well operation shall maintain an injection/annulus pressure differential of at least 100 psi through the tubing length); or
  2. Maintaining a positive gauge pressure on the casing/tubing annulus (filled with liquid) and monitoring the pressure monthly and reporting of the pressure information annually; or
  3. Radioactive tracer survey; or
  4. for enhanced recovery wells, records of monitoring showing the absence of significant changes in the relationship between injection pressure and injection flow rate at the well head, following an initial pressure test as described by (a) above; or
  5. Testing or monitoring programs approved by the Regional Administrator on a case-by-case basis.

Over 90 percent of the injection wells in Osage County demonstrate the presence or absence [sic] of a significant leak in the casing, tubing, or packer through the standard pressure test (2a above).1

However, early into the mechanical integrity test (MIT) program, it was discovered there were some wells which had open perforations above the packer. The operators and the BIA were reluctant to squeeze off these perforations, both because of the economics of the remedial work and the possibility that these zones might once again become commercially productive or could be used for an injection well in an enhanced recovery project. Thus, the problem of being able to demonstrate the mechanical integrity of such wells.


  1. This paragraph doesn’t make sense. What percentage of the wells in Osage County either pass or fail the pressure test? Do 90-percent pass and 10-percent fail, or vice versa?
Extents of the Ada-Vamoosa Aquifer via USGS

In response to a question about the presence of an aquifer, Tallie said that the Ada-Vamoosa is a Pennsylvanian sandstone aquifer that underlies the Preserve, above the brine bearing strata. Extent of the aquifer is shown in green and gray on the USGS map to the right. The eastern edge of Osage County is on the 96th meridian. About the middle third of Osage County sits on top of the aquifer. With large numbers of oil and gas wells bored through the aquifer to access the oil and brine strata, even a mechanically sound well will be subject to corrosive brine and eventually fail.

As a laboratory, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve has few equals. It has already seen the development of remediation processes for the surface. There are plenty of opportunities to do remedial work on abandoned or failed wells as part of university-based engineering science teaching.

Harvey Payne

After lunch, Harvey Payne thanked us for our continuing commitment to being part of the docent program, recognizing Nancy Irby who had joined the 100-shift club having completed 118. Between Dave Dolcater who has completed 209 shifts and Van Vives who completed 236, there were two others who completed 223 and 231 shifts, Iris McPherson and Anita Springer.

Harvey thanked Karen Cruce, David & Betty Turner for their strong efforts at making this year’s docent recruiting and reorientation an amazing success. Harvey uttered some kind words for the newsletter too, which were received with appreciation.

Harvey said that he was recruited by Henry Little in 1990 to be the first Director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. During their negotiations, Henry said: The Nature Conservancy gives people opportunity to realize their dreams, a notion that has stuck in Harvey’s mind ever since.

Certainly the Preserve has brought people together and fostered a community with common dreams, despite initial resistance from various directions. Resistance is a good thing because it puts ideas to the test, ensuring that the promoters exert due diligence in laying the foundations and addressing the concerns of the opposition. Harvey has said on multiple occasions that it is a prime objective of The Nature Conservancy and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve to be a good neighbor. In general, the Preserve has put Osage County and Pawhuska on the international map, attracting visitors from around the world. Today, Pawhuska looks more prosperous than it did twenty years ago; let’s hope that this is a continuing trend in a good direction.

The Nature Conservancy bought the Barnard Ranch in 1989 and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve took possession in 1991 after three years of the land lying fallow. The Chapman-Barnard ranch was owned by two of the richest men in the country who shunned publicity. Instead, they took care of the land well enough for other ranches to want a piece when it came up for sale. Instead, with a lot of help, The Nature Conservancy managed to do the deal. Acquisition of the ranch was a major event for the Conservancy that marked a change in direction from piecemeal to landscape scale conservation.

Harvey said that, initially, the University of Tulsa wasn’t particularly interested in participating with the Conservancy, unlike the other schools in Oklahoma. Dr. Kerry Sublette approached the Preserve about the possibility of doing some research into remediation of oil field pollution. A very fruitful relationship developed between Tulsa University and the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. Dr. Sublette developed a soil remediation program on the Preserve that has since been exported worldwide. Dr. Sublette went a lot further; he was the driving force behind raising the funds to get the Research Station built and established a maintenance and operating endowment that was then transfered to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. A vision and dream made real.

Seventy-six counties in Oklahoma host oil and gas activity. On the 1.5-million acres of Osage County, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve has become the most significant area for oil and gas saltwater remediation. The University of Tulsa and the Preserve have become strong partners.

Last year was the 25th anniversary of the formation of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. The Preserve is in a strong position. Bob Hamilton is now the Director of the Preserve since Harvey stepped aside. Harvey said that the most significant recent development was the successful acquisition of the John Joseph Mathews property from the Mathews family.

Harvey talked about John Joseph Mathews after which we went on a hike to the Mathews cabin. We’ll stop here and pick up the story under The Blackjacks heading below.

Docent Training Progress

—Kay Krebbs

During March, docent interns made great progress with their training. A special note of congratulations to John Jackson and Elmer Downing who completed three days staffing the Visitor’s Center before the end of the month. Also, congratulations to the following interns who have completed their training and are now scheduling their own days at Tallgrass Prairie Preserve: Bill Adrain, Jane Adrain, Chris Bartenhagen, Chris Dash, Elmer Downing, Phil Glover, John Hammond, John Jackson, Karen Johnson, Lee Johnson, Virginia Kuch, Robert McCalla, Deborah McCormick, Keith McDowell, Anne Schwerdt, Steve Schwerdt, and Lucy Weberling.

Spring Work Day Change of Venue – Saturday, 18 April 2015

—Dennis Bires

Safety issues relating to a prescribed burn at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve compelled us to redirect our April 18 Work Day away from the John Joseph Mathews cabin, as originally announced. We will endeavor to reschedule a cabin-vicinity clean-up in another season.

Meanwhile, other work calls out for our efforts this Saturday, April 18. We will meet instead at the Visitor’s Center at 10:00 a.m., and proceed to the nearby Trailhead for a morning trail maintenance project. A recent burn there has revealed fallen branches that must be removed so springtime hikers can have unimpeded access to the entire Prairie Earth Trail. Please bring work gloves, hand clippers, and bow saws or other saws suitable for clearing small to large branches.

Also, bring a lunch for our noon break on the Bunkhouse porch. After lunch we will caravan to some stunningly beautiful parts of the Preserve, not accessible by the general public, to do some debris clean-up around oil production facilities. Bison don’t appreciate discarded scrap metal, hoses, and coffee cups any more than we do, but it is up to us humans to keep these areas clean. Some of our more responsible production operators have pumping units on pristine sites in the area we will visit, but also some others. Walking the rolling hills in bright spring green should make this work a delight.

My apologies to those anxious to visit the Mathews cabin. [See The Blackjacks below for a virtual visit. Ed.] Please stay tuned for future opportunities.

The Blackjacks

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

John Joseph Mathews in 1928

During our second Docent Reorientation this year, Harvey Payne talked about John Joseph Mathews and led the hike to the cabin that Mathews built in 1932. Mathews was born on 16 November 1894 and died on 11 June 1979, aged 83. He was one eighth Osage, one of 2,229 members of the tribe with full headrights, and went to school in Pawhuska. He was offered a Rhodes scholarship that he declined.

The war-to-end-all-wars intervened in his life, during which he served as a flight instructer in Texas and was, at some time, associated with the cavalry. After the war, Mathews went to Oxford University where he studied for a degree in Natural Science and graduated in 1923. He studied international relations at the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International Studies and traveled in North Africa before returning to the United States. He spent some time as a newspaper correspondent and returned to Pawhuska in 1929. He became known as the Osage Oxonian and now has an entry in the Wikipedia.

Nobody exists in isolation. We are receivers of the gifts or otherwise that make us and shape our personalities. Mathews grew up in his banker father’s house at 911 Grandview Avenue, Pawhuska, across the street from Laban Miles who was the local BIA Agent, nephew of President Herbert Hoover, and a central character in Mathew’s first book Wah’kon-tah: The Osage and The White Man’s Road published in 1929. Instead of a boring biblical who begot whom, scroll through the nice engineering flow-chart below that sets Mathews among his family relationships.

John Joseph Mathews Family Tree

Mathews was active in tribal politics; he was twice elected to the Tribal Council serving from 1934 to 1942. Part of his legacy derives from his help to found the Osage Tribal Museum that is now located on the West side of Grandview Avenue a few doors South from his family home; more importantly, he was instrumental in extending the tribal mineral rights and helped to restore self-government of the Osage Nation.

Mathews’ land consists in the 320 acres on which he built his cabin and another 320 acres elsewhere that he leased. I seem to remember reading in Talking to the Moon that a cowboy would ride across to pay him his rent and visit overnight. He entailed his land to his children for their lifetime and to his children’s children for their lifetime. It was a mess that was nullified in court, restoring the right to sell the land. It was owned by his son John H. Mathews from whom the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve leased The Blackjacks and recently purchased at full market value.

When we hiked to the cabin, it was a mild, sunny afternoon. A few deer ran from our approach. A gentle breeze rattled the dried oak leaves still clinging to the bare branches, adding a light percussion to the songs of the birds going about their business. A peaceful calm was in the air, just the environment for a writing and thinking man. See the satellite image below: the top half of the montage is the general area showing The Blackjacks in what looks like a letter P of trees, just above the lower left quadrant that is zoomed in to Mathews’ cabin adjacent to the lower right-hand quadrant zoomed closer yet.

Satellite Pictures of The Blackjacks

As you can see in the photo-montage below, the cabin is derelict, needing a lot of work to effect proper restoration. The top view is taken from the West side facing East; the middle view is taken from the South side facing North, and the bottom picture is the view facing Northwest, showing the collapsed sleeping-porch on the East side of the cabin.

John Joseph Mathews’ Cabin, The Blackjacks

The mural looks in good condition. Harvey wondered what kind of paint Mathews used; considering the time, the paint may well be lead-based. An interesting feature of the mural is the depiction of a hunt that looks suspiciously like an English fox hunt.

John Joseph Mathews’ Cabin, Outhouse Mural

Dennis Bires drew our attention to the English saddle and heel-down posture of the rider; certainly, the attire is indicative. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that Mathews would have attended a hunt during his time in England, especially as there would have been other students at Oxford who came from a hunting background in the counties of England.

John Joseph Mathews’ Cabin, Outhouse Mural

Inside the cabin, there are two rooms. Originally, it appears to have been built as one room with the second room on the West side added to provide a kitchen space; Dennis Bires pointed out that the hearth in the kitchen looks designed to be used for cooking, being raised about eighteen inches from the floor and tiled with terracotta tiles. Prevailing winds in this part of the world are mainly from the North during winter and from the South in summer. In orientation, the North wall of the main room is devoted to the fireplace where it can bear the brunt of the winter winds. The screened sleeping-porch on the East side catches the summer winds and is shaded from the hot afternoon sun. In Talking to the Moon, Mathews mentions that the mosquitoes can be very bothersome.

Below, the left picture is in the National Archives, taken by Andrew T. Kelley, December 16, 1937. The motto on the edge of the concrete mantelpiece is variously translated but Venari lavari ludere ridere occast vivere seems to fit fairly well with: To hunt, to bathe, to play, to laugh, that is to live. Mathews encountered the motto on Roman ruins during his travels in North Africa and adopted it as his own.

John Joseph Mathews’ Cabin, At Home

Harvey said that acquisition of The Blackjacks is a hand-in-glove fit with the objectives of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and The Nature Conservancy, objectives that he feels are in accord with the values that John Joseph Mathews had when he was alive. Restoration work will be planned in consultation first with the Osage Tribe through Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, second with the University of Oklahoma, and third with the Oklahoma Historical Society through Frederick Drummond. Once it is restored it will be staffed by a history student and have limited public opening.

Mathews is buried in the Southwest corner of the cabin grounds under a cedar tree.

John Joseph Mathews’ Grave Marker

 

American Burying Beetle, (Nicrophorus americanus)

—Rochelle Caudill

One of the wonders of volunteering at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is the people you meet along the way. One hot sunny day, while I was doing my thing as a volunteer, a young lady came in with her friends. I introduced myself and they told me they were students from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD, doing research on the American Burying Beetle. To be totally honest I had never heard of this little guy, however, I discovered, when they pointed it out to me, that we had a picture of the Beetle on the counter. She informed me that some beetles use environmental stimuli to communicate and are affected by the climate. They explained that the Beetle was endangered and they were looking at how ground vibration from wind turbines affected the reproductive behavior of the Beetle. The young lady went on to describe their method of recording the sounds of wind turbines and how they were going to use this sound on the prairie with other non endangered beetles to see if it affected the reproductive behavior that is crucial for this insect to survive. I found her study fascinating, however did not request a copy of the completed study at that time. I thought of her often and wondered about the study results.

American Burying Beetles get down to business

When I arrived at the Docent Reorientation on March 14, 2015, much to my surprise and delight, there is on the wall of the conference room a poster with the results of the study. Through my research I found that Courtney Moore, had won first place for her poster The effect of wind-turbine induced vibration on the reproductive behavior of the endangered American burying beetle, at the 67th annual meeting of the North Central Branch of the Entomological Society of America.

In her discussion, she reported that wind turbine vibrations do not prevent the burying Beetle from burying their carrion source, nor does the disturbance affect the size of the brood, however as the vibrational intensities increase so do the burial latency periods. This is ecologically relevant as the longer it takes to secure and bury a carcass, the more likely scavengers will find the carcass and interrupt the process, thus not allowing the recovery of this endangered species.

Dr. Dan Howard at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, SD is the primary investigator of the vibrational effects on the American Burying Beetle. He said in an email that Courtney Moore graduated and is now in medical school. He sent a copy of the poster published last year by the new student authors.

Wind Turbine Vibration Poster

If you are interested, you can download the poster as a PDF file via this link.

Soil Remediation

—Andrew Donovan-Shead

This article first appeared in the March 2004 issue of The Docent News, a report of Dr. Kerry Sublette’s presentation at the annual Docent Reorientation.

At our docent reorientation meeting on March 6, 2004, we heard Dr. Kerry Sublette talk about his fieldwork on the Tallgrass Prairie investigating soil remediation, which is what he does to mitigate the effects caused by oil and saltwater escaping into the surface environment of the Earth. Dr. Sublette’s presentation was lucid and cogent.

Oil wells produce a mixture of oil and brine. Brine is water saturated or strongly impregnated with common salt. As oil wells age, the ratio of saltwater to oil increases. Most of the wells on the Tallgrass Prairie are old; there are about three hundred of which one hundred continue to operate. Naturally, the oil and brine must be separated; this is done at a tank battery located at a convenient place in the vicinity.

A tank battery consists, at a minimum, of two fat, squat tanks adjacent to a tall, thin tank. Oil and brine is pumped from the wellheads across country into the tall, thin tank that serves as a separator. Oil and water don’t mix and will separate under action of gravity with the heavier water gravitating to the bottom of the thin tank while the oil rises to the top. Sometimes the separator tank is filled with special material to increase the surface area of the interior and equipped with a horseshoe-shaped heater; heat and the higher surface area helps to speed separation of the fluids.

Once separated, oil and brine are pumped into their own holding tanks, the two squat tanks nearby. Oil is collected periodically by tanker truck and taken to a refinery for processing into gasoline, fuel oil, paraffin wax, plastics, polyethylene glycol (PEG), and many other products; you would be amazed, and alarmed, at how dependent our way of life is on oil. Brine is a useless nuisance that is a cost of doing business; it is pumped from its holding tank to an injection well where it is returned deep underground.

Ten times as much brine as oil is produced by each well. Brine is thought to come from ancient seawater trapped under ground. It is highly corrosive to metals and deadly to life. Life needs some salt, not much though. Oil well plumbing is made of steel pipes and tanks that are very susceptible to corrosion by salty fluids.

Most tank batteries are surrounded by earthen berms to contain any fluids leaking from the tanks. Properly designed, these containment berms will also be lined with an impermeable membrane to prevent seepage into the ground.

Often leaks occur in the pipework, spilling oil and brine onto the ground. Crude oil spills are easy to clean-up compared to spilled brine.

Crude oil is cleaned away by bioremediation. Bioremediation uses the bacteria that occur naturally in the soil to consume the oily hydrocarbons. Trick is to make it easy for these bacteria to do their job, which means adding fertilizer, moisture, creating good soil structure, and warm temperatures. It is a process called landfarming because the activities needed look identical to farming. You plow hay into the contaminated ground to improve the soil structure while adding fertilizer to help the hay decompose and the bacteria to grow, adding water when needed. It’s just like gardening, you don’t start work until the weather is warm enough to produce good crops; in this case you want a good crop of bacteria to eat up the crude oil.

Soil remediation takes time, several years for the land to recover from insult by oil and brine. Brine is a bigger problem because it has to be washed away, diluted. Brine stops roots of plants from extracting water from the soil, killing them within days. Once plant life is killed there is nothing to hold the soil together and the soil will start to erode, blowing away in the wind and washing away in the rain. Rapid revegetation is essential to hold the top soil in place. Any vegetation will form an island of fertility helping recovery of the land.

Only way to remove salt left by a brine spill is through dilution and drainage. Salt is mobile; it is diluted by rain and carried away across the natural lie of the land or with the help of a French drain. Either way, the soil must be conditioned to improve its structure by plowing in hay and fertilizer. If French drainage is installed then flow is directed to a sump where the brine is collected and taken away to an injection well.

Once oil and brine is removed, the final task is to restore the original condition of the land prior to pollution by the spill. Dr. Sublette is experimenting with earthworms to help speed restoration of soils. In case of the prairie, you know that John Deere’s steel plow is bad for the deep rooted prairie grasses, but sometimes a scalpel is needed to heal a hurt. Natural vegetation is replanted and the land left to recover its former glory, convalescence in care of Nature.

Dr. Sublette’s research on the Tallgrass Prairie is a collaboration between the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Oklahoma with funding from the Department Of Environment (DOE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His results have been transferred to oil producers across the U.S. and throughout the world in the form of lectures like the one we experienced at Pawhuska, environmental checklists, self-assessment kits, bioremediation guidelines, and training videos.

Dr. Sublette’s research is a shining example of value extracted from the Tallgrass Prairie and The Nature Conservancy’s commitment to science-based environmental conservation. We had a fascinating look at science applied to nurture our environment. In this The Nature Conservancy excels, making it easy to see cause and effect, easy to see the value of taking good care of our natural heritage; it removes the emotion and grounds in facts our efforts to conserve.

Prairie Watching: Prescribed Burning for Prairie Recycling

—Dwight Thomas, Ph.D.

Through the first three weeks In March, 2015, I was at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve four days to work as a Docent, helping train new Docents and interacting with visitors. I found that we had a large, enthusiastic, and capable group of new Docents, and we had visitors all day long each day.

During those March visits, I saw a vastly different prairie than I had seen on my January and February visits. The difference was that there were fires, haze, smoke, ashes, and blackened landscapes everywhere. Smoke plumes were visible in almost every direction.

Prairie Fire by Blackbear Bosin

This was not just on the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve; it was scattered all along the way on my drive to and from the Preserve. Billows of smoke from just over the hilltop create a note of urgency as you drive by, and the starkness of freshly burned prairies make a deep impression that you need to pay attention and be careful. And the sunrises and sunsets, often spectacular anyway, were even more colorful with the addition of smoke to the atmosphere. On these visits with fire so evident, I was reminded that fire has always been part of the life of the prairie. In January 2014, in our Tallgrass Prairie Docent Newsletter, I wrote about how we could get a good historical view of the prairie by looking at historical artwork. I illustrated that with George Catlin’s 1832 painting Prairie Meadow Burning. Another example of artistic presentation of burning prairie is Francis Blackbear Bosin’s Prairie Fire, which is at Philbrook Museum in Tulsa. Above is a photograph of that painting.

Obviously it was the season of Spring burning of the prairies. We know that burning is essential for maintaining a prairie, and many ranchers burn from fence-row to fence-row every year to ensure that their prairies are good pastures for their cattle. We also know that the Nature Conservancy fire management plan of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve is to burn in smaller patches in random rotation to allow for protection of wildlife and better distribution of bison grazing. Notice the smoke in the air and hazy horizon in the photograph below of bison crossing the road.

Bison Crossing Road in Smoke by Dwight Thomas

When I work as a Docent, I plan my day at the prairie so that, in addition to working at the Visitor’s Center, I have time to drive around the preserve to see the bison, deer, and whatever else makes itself visible. I also plan a time to walk around at least part of the trails to see what plants are newly growing or blooming and what birds and other animals can be found. These drives and walks help me know the prairie better and also help satisfy the attraction that I have for the prairies and woodlands. There are certain spots that I always pause to take in fully, and some spots that I always stop to photograph on each visit.

Prairie Trail Unburned & Burned by Dwight Thomas

During the first week of March, the area of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve where the trails are laid out was burned. And it was burned completely, with almost nothing protruding above ground level. So when I walked around the trails on March 10, 2015, I had a totally different experience than what I had on February 14, 2015. On that day, the trails wound through the prairie and the woods with old growth grass and forbs standing from a few inches to a few feet tall. On March 10, 2015, the trail stood as the high ground with blackened grass and other plants extending for as far as I could see. There was nothing green or even tan. The area seemed totally foreign. I had an eerie feeling while walking through the burned-out trail area. The feeling was a sadness and even a bit of foreboding that the area had been ruined. I could clearly see trails that had been made by Deer and many small critters. There was no place above ground to hide. There was no food.

Prairie Burn Recovery by Dwight Thomas

By March 17, 2015, and even more by March 21, 2015, when I made my walk, I was relieved to see that grasses had already begun to grow. There were green sprouts throughout the blackened field. Not only were the grasses growing, there were also shoots of many broad-leafed plants growing so fast that I could almost see them grow. I knew that the prairie was once again recycling its nutrients, growing where old-growth had stifled it, and on its way to being the lush growth of prairie plants that had been there before the fire. Many of the critters would soon be back, even though I saw a lot of predation shortly after the fire.

And just wait a few more days. By mid-April, those prairie forbs will begin to bloom. Here are some I remembered from watching recovery from Spring fires in a previous year. Look for Prairie Irises and Tradescantias, as seen below, growing and blooming from burned land. But also look for Verbenas and Fringed Puccoons and thousands of other Spring-flowering plants.

Prairie Iris & Prairie Tradescantia by Dwight Thomas

The prairie has been burned. It is recovering. It will be renewed with nutrients, with more space for growing, and with more light at the surface. Those plants and animals that are so specially adapted to living in the prairies have withstood the fires and are thriving. The Nature Conservancy fire management plans are working. Even some of those ranchers may be watching and learning. Maybe eventually their pastures will be managed more like true prairies.

Common Butterflies of the Tallgrass Prairie:
Cloudless Sulphur (Phoebis sennae)

—George Pierson

The cloudless sulphur is one of the most recognizable of the sulphurs. With a wingspan that is from 2¼″ to 3⅛″, it is larger than most of the others in that family that can be seen at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. They are very fast fliers; in my experience, they fly 10 to 15 feet off the ground and rarely stop to have their photo taken.

Cloudless Sulphur: Male Left, Female Right by George Pierson

Males are a bright lemon yellow while females can be yellow or a light gteen. Both sexes have cell end spots. Males have fewer markings than the females. Females have a faint broken line toward the tip of the forewing.

Visitor Counts

—Iris McPherson

The new year beginning on March 1, 2015 has started for the docents. The visitors didn’t wait until the Visitor’s Center was open. A few hardy folk came in January and February. We never know what the count would have been for those months, since visitors don’t necessarily sign the visitor’s book. Based on the visitors that did sign in, we had 92 visitors in January with 9 states and 1 foreign country represented. In February there were 78 visitors with 10 states and 1 foreign country represented.

For the first three days in March we were not open due to bad weather and roads. Once the weather cooperated we had a good response. There were several large groups that came in March and that really boosted our numbers. There were a total of 822 visitors. Of that total there were 815 from the US and 7 from foreign countries. Of those from the US there were 638 from Oklahoma with KS (47), TX (19) and NY (16) being the next 3 most highly represented states.

The following table will give you a look at how this year started compared to previous years.

We have a lot of new docents this year, which is a real delight for the rest of us. One of the things that we must emphasize in the training is that each docent on duty should encourage visitors to sign the guest register outside the front door. The numbers give us an idea of where our visitors live, which helps us figure out the states and countries not being represented. One of the things I enjoy most as a docent is getting to visit with people from all the US states and many foreign countries. It is amazing when you stop and think about our opportunities to spread The Nature Conservancy’s message about the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, as well as the Conservancy’s many other preserves.

Remember to always politely request our visitors to sign the guest register.

Annual Number of Known Visitors to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Summarized by Month
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
1994260280569 9511,4561,5291,5651,0451,0101,11767233810,792
19952824206681,1671,6021,7001,4851,598 9921,58877026212,534
19962163257051,1001,9042,0811,3621,0301,1971,41653039912,265
19972912889121,0551,9221,8771,2991,0551,0321,30457841712,030
19983173406091,1781,4561,2581,182 960 8841,13366728910,273
1999215417628 7771,7121,8571,209 703 7541,54992234211,085
20002292825831,1761,6241,6141,017 597 8181,125438 93 9,596
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
2001131149855 9101,8111,5501,100 6381,0491,25065325210,348
2002217114761 7251,7451,3831,057 685 951 688517140 9,010
2003 98 39527 8081,190 832 594 6721,008 ????????? 7,125
2006????????? 586 810 629 709 310 605 641405 68 4,763
2007 47 35361 575 810 737 756 407 660 688396 81 5,553
2008 26 74299 507 941 664 629 436 488 724560111 5,459
2009117 72482 428 9691,026 790 688 746 615443 25 6,401
2010 23194471 735 979 739 898 538 769 793450 72 6,661
YearJanFebMar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep OctNovDecTotals
2011 35 42478 547 612 587 634 293 494 672313 92 4,799
2012 73 42368 436 732 699 446 293 389 416466 36 4,396
2013 64 33437 466 720 760 846 580 543 612391104 5,556
2014 81 41482 811 784 635 874 601 464 687385114 5,959
2015 92 78822 992

As of December 2014, we have received 154,605 visitors who took the trouble to announce their presence in the Visitor’s Book.

In 1994, George Myers started recording the numbers of visitors to the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve and from whence they came. He did this for almost ten years. His last report appeared in the September 2003 edition of the newsletter.

Beginning in April 2006, Iris McPherson took up the task of chronicling Tallgrass Prairie Preserve visitation, as recorded in the Visitor’s Book.

Docent Coverage Of Season Days

—Bill Alexander

The Visitor’s Center coverage chart shows the results of having a large new docent class. Our days open for March was 84-percent versus 65-percent for the same period last year. And if the four weather-day closings are removed, when both docents and interns were signed up, then the coverage would be 97-percent for the month. This tremendous improvement bodes well for getting the message of what is happening on the Preserve out to our visitors in 2015. Thanks to all for this dramatic improvement.

Docent Coverage of Season DaysDocent Coverage of Season Days Annual History

Other Places to Visit

Here we provide some links to other places worth visiting.

Visitor’s Center Latitude & Longitude

Here is the latitude and longitude of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve Visitor’s Center that you can give to visitors for entry into their GPS navigation device.

These coordinates are a verified position on the parking lot in front of the Visitor’s Center. This link to Google maps shows the position superimposed on satellite imagery: https://goo.gl/maps/hBUIu.

Back Issues

Some printed back issues of the Docent Newsletter, to February 2009, can be found in the two green and one blue-black zip-binders, stored in the Perspex rack by the file cabinet in the office of the Visitor’s Center.

All back issues are available electronically via the links shown below. All newsletters prior to December 2007 are available in Portable Document Format (PDF), which means that you will need Adobe Reader installed on your computer to read these files. All newsletters from December 2007 onwards are in HTML format that is easily read using your web-browser.

Available Back Issues:

2015January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2015
2014January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2014
2013January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2013
2012January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2012
2011January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2011
2010January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2010
2009January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2009
2008January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2008
2007January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2007
2006—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2006
2005January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2005
2004—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2004
2003—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December—2003
2002—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2002
2001January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2001
2000January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December2000
1999January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1999
1998January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1998
1997January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1997
1996—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1996
1995—January  February  March  April  May  June  July  August  September  October  November  December1995

Selected Topics Index

This persistent index of selected topics should make finding articles of interest easier. The list will grow as I move further into the past and it will grow as I add interesting topics from each new newsletter. Iris McPherson lent me the paper copies of the newsletter from the very early years of the docent program; I ran them through a scanner equipped with a document feeder, saving them as PDF files, then added them to Back Issues section above. Let me know of any dead links that you discover. Also, please lend me any paper copies of the newsletter that are missing so that I can scan and add them to the list of back issues.

Biodiversity

Birds

Bison

Bison Roundup

Books

Botany

Butterflies

Butterfly Counts

Docents

Docent Recognition Luncheons

Docent Reorientations

Docent Council Meetings

Forbs

Insects

Grass

Haiku on the Prairie

History

Josie of the Prairie

Miscellaneous

Osage

Prairie Watching

Rangeland Management

Recipes

Science

Sightings

Trails

Trees

Verse

Visitor’s Center

Visitor’s Center Kiosk

Visits

Newsletter Publication

Deadline for submission of articles for inclusion in the newsletter is the 10th of each month. Publication date is on the 15th. All docents, Nature Conservancy staff, university scientists, philosophers, and historians are welcome to submit articles and pictures about the various preserves in Oklahoma, but of course the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in particular.