Drilling Mud Poses Little Environmental Hazard

"Roughneck" drillers are all too familiar with the gunk that messes oil rigs up--they call it "drilling mud."

Mostly composed of ground-up rock and water, lubricating fluid is pumped down the center of the hollow drill stem, and emerges again at the surface, carrying the pulverized rock and other unspeakable things. This is necessary to lubricate the drill shaft, cool the hole, and carry away the detritus that the drilling has created.

And thereby comes the controversy. Namely: does this practice damage the environment, specifically, does it foul the ocean-bottom surface when applied to offshore drilling? It now appears that the answer is no.

Recently, a research council panel, formed at the request of the Department of the Interior, studied the question to determine just how serious a threat to the environment is posed by the "dumping" of approximately two million metric gallons of drilling fluid components now released annually on the outer continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico (note that this does not include Alaskan waters). A specific recommendation was that the "flushing fluid" not contain more than four percent diesel, which seemed to contribute significantly to the toxicity of the drilling fluids which contain it.

Their report concluded that the toxic effects were minimal, that soon after the drilling mud was returned to the ocean floor, and after an insubstantial amount of time, currents dissipated the fluids to levels that were innocuous--the level of the initial "plume" being diluted by a factor of 10,000 or more in less than an hour.

Despite man's efforts to the contrary, it appears that nature refuses to release her hold over the natural order of things.