Reducing the Environmental Impact of Oil & Gas Field Access Roads: Creation and Long term Monitoring of New Technology to Lower Footprint in Desert EcosystemsThe Research Partnership to Secure Energy of America (RPSEA) Unconventional Oil & Gas Development (Environmental Issues) is funding Texas A&M University to construct and then perform demonstrations of low impact O&G lease roads designed to reduce the environmental impact of field development in sensitive new desert ecosystems. The site will be located at the newly established University Desert Test Center http://www.pecosrtc.org/ near Pecos Texas on the edge of the Chihuahua desert. The Texas Tansportation Institute Pavement and Materials (TTI) manages this site and assists with the project. (http://tti.tamu.edu/research_areas/topic.htm?p_tid=5 ) The new A&M Research project will test three new types** of low impact roads plus one comparison standard gravel lease road), all road test sections constructed at the Desert Test Center. The roads will be instrumented for remote measurement, and then evaluated for the ability to withstand both normal and heavy truck traffic over intermittent periods through a complete calendar year. Part of the heavy traffic will consist of moving two platform modules of 20,000 lbs each built for modular drill site pads (Anadarko Petroleum Company’s Gas Hydrates Project 2003) which are stored that the test site in preparation for testing ( see Figure 1.) A fifth type of low impact road (a “disappearing road”) will be incorporated into the test site as part of a nationwide competition currently being conducted by the Texas A&M Petroleum Engineering Department.
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