Brock Yordy:  

Good morning. Welcome to Episode 123 of The Driller Newscast, a weekly update on the news and stories impacting the construction and drilling industries, especially water well and geothermal drilling. I'm your host, Brock Yordy, and this week in the news, we're going to head to the mid con and talk about the United States Department of Agriculture's research facility that's under the knife during the Farm Bill discussions that we've continued from last week. 

Next, we'll jump right into the Ogallala, and especially Kansas, and its water conservation versus the other seven states. Our feature this week is the EPA’s report on climate impact, and how that impacts our groundwater, and all of the great initiatives we have right now to drill geothermal and groundsource geothermal to embrace our net zero technologies. But, before we jump into all this great content, let’s talk some safety. 

Implementing Responsible Safety Policies

This week in safety, we need to talk about our responsibility as employers and our safety policies. Last week, wrapped up OSHA's initiative on safe and smart company programs, and I want to recap some of the pieces they had to say. So, as responsible employers, we need to know that our main goal of health and safety programs is to prevent work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths, as well as suffering and financial hardships, which can happen when we have these unnecessary risks where we put our family, our coworkers, in danger.  

So as employers, we need to find time and make sure we have a good safety policy that recommends that there is no situation that we should be putting our people in with a known risk or hazard that we haven't put a plan in place to eliminate. So, now that we're all on the same page, let's jump into the nine points that OSHA got into with last week's safety week topic. But we should be doing year-round, especially as we're looking at workforce development programs and all the situations we're getting into for new-hires in that next generation. And it is very important for us to consider what our safety programs look like.  

Number one, we have to set a safety and health program, and that has to be the top priority of our company. We need to tell our workers that you do business by making sure that at every job, we finish, and everybody goes home safe. We have to assure them that you will work with them to find and eliminate any hazards that could injure them or make them sick.  

Number two, lead by example. Seems pretty self-evident here as we've been big family businesses, and you know what, if you got hurt, you got your son or daughter hurt, mom and grandma was going to be the safety police 10 times worse than OSHA. So again, let's lead by example. And that means we have to practice safe behaviors as us as the leaders and with our employees to make safety part of our daily conversation with workers.  

Three, implement a reporting system and develop and communicate a simple procedure for workers to report any injury, illness, or incident. This includes near misses, close calls, hazards, or safety and health concerns without fear of retaliation. Think about this, we just covered this a few weeks ago in the news about retaliation. Those near misses, those situations of a black and blue thumbnail. You know, that nick on a hand, that nick on an arm or a shin, is an outlier telling us that we're getting into bad situations. We need to include an option for reporting hazard concerns anonymously. Think about that, what is your near miss reporting? We talk about this a lot.  

Number four, we must provide training and train workers on identifying and controlling hazards using, for example, OSHA’s hazardous identification training.  

Number five, we need to conduct inspections, inspect the job site with workers, and ask them to identify any activity piece of equipment or material that caused concerns to them. Again, remember the statistic that one out of three individuals on a job site feels unsafe in almost any task we do. We need to create a checklist and have other resources such as os a construction industry digest. You can do all the safety talks, tailgate talks, you can go back and look at past safety discussions we've had here on The Driller Newscast, but it's all about helping us identify problems. 

Six, we gotta collect hazard control ideas. That means, talk with our workers about safety and improvement throughout the project. There's always a better way to do a task.  

Number seven, implement hazard controls, assign workers and tasks of choosing what they can help implement and evaluate for solutions. That means new-hires coming in—they may see something differently.  

Eight, we have to address emergencies, identify foreseeable emergency scenarios, and help develop instructions on what it means to react to these situations. We need to meet and discuss these procedures before a project starts. There's multiple places that we need to be doing this for all different locations. 

Nine, we need to make improvements. We need to set aside time to talk to our team and have discussions about how we keep everybody safe.  

Finally, I wanna end with this, everybody. We're jumping on some big construction projects, construction drilling, geothermal drilling, the federal infrastructure bill, we have the IRA going on—employees and workers on multi-employer work sites should pay particular attention to what's called the coordinations and communication for employees on multi-employer work sites. Think about, who's got span of control? What other hazards are being introduced that you're not being made aware of?  

We need to understand who our competent people are, and who's the general contractor, who's the prime contractor, and who's the construction managers and subcontractors. Are there temporary staff? Think about all the things that happen on construction sites and now we're introducing a drill rig. That is a major hazard. Bringing in a crane or a pump hoist. These are all situations that we need to be in full discussion about who ultimately has span of control.  

It's a big lesson-learned story that we need to think about, and that is, if there's a fatality on-site or a horrific event, OSHA is gonna shut that entire job site down, and all the controlling interests that will be part of that project, all of the equipment that's on the inside of that lockdown, cannot be removed.  

Think about that as your rig, your pump hoist, your equipment, trapped there 10, 12, to 14 weeks while they do an investigation. It's a bad situation, so we need to determine who's got span of control and always understand, we always could say ‘stop.’ We should all have a ‘stop work’ authority that is fully communicated from all employers and subcontractors onsite. Go out, be safe. 

Land, Legacy, and Research: The High-Stakes Battle Over Fort Reno's Future

This week in the news, let's head out to Fort Reno, Oklahoma, which is the home of the Central Plains Agricultural Research Center, also known as the Grazing Land Research Laboratory, which for multiple decades has been one of the most significant USDA research facilities in our country. Just last week, we talked about the Farm Bill in the fact that it hasn't been passed. 

And in the previous Farm Bills since 2002, there has been a provision to prevent transfer of these lands that the research center IS on back to the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes who have pursued these lands as theirs for over 150 years. This is a 9,500-acre parcel. I think it's important to identify that there is sizable oil and gas reserves in this 9,500 acres. 

So you can see, there's multiple pieces here that are going on from when we established this as a USDA research facility. Since 2002, there has been language in the Farm Bill preventing transfer of whole or part back to the Cheyenne and the Arapaho tribe. The Central Plains Agricultural Center studies crops, pastures, and livestock, and the impact of these to the great plains. 

The tribes have asked for 2,000 acres of the land to be turned into an entertainment venue that includes an amusement park, water park, campground, and prairie restoration. For the tribes, this expansion will create 3,000 jobs and generate $1 billion per year. Mind you, the oil reserves alone could generate $1.65 billion a year. So as we see the Farm Bill, this is a research center that has a lot to do with irrigation, with crops, and what's going on, and with our stalled Farm Bill, there's multiple pieces here. 

As we are also discussing no more litigation, let's make sure the tribes and sovereign nations are taken care of. Where does this fall? Do we transfer all 9,500 acres, do we do a partial, or do we come up with a strategic agreement that works for all?  

The Ogallala Dilemma: Kansas Farmers Face Hard Choices as Water Crisis Deepens

Moving on, the Ogallala is in Oklahoma, and it's in Kansas. So, talking about the great plans, let's jump into the Ogallala. Just last week, I saw a TikTok video of Idaho farmers stating that they would not allow regulation, especially what's happening in the Ogallala to happen in Idaho, that the water beneath their feet is their water and they will continue to use it to produce crops and livestock as necessary. 

Here we are, water resource management is a big discussion every week—every day of 2024. Facilities like the USDA Central Plains Agricultural Research Center help substantiate what is possible in good groundwater conservation practices. This comes along with the Department of Interior National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, and our State and National Associations. Last year, lawmakers passed legislation targeting Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District Three, which is a very big district. It's twice the size of the other two. 

It was identified that Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District Three was not implementing formal conservation policies. Even earlier this year, it was proposed by Kansas State Representative, Sydney Howerton—Republican, to dismantle the Water Management District Three to allow districts one and two to implement their more progressive policies and help District Three become more proactive.

Here's the deal. I want you to think about interstate groundwater rights and the impact to surrounding states. The Ogallala spans across eight states: Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas. And, you know, unless you're living out there, you're not really thinking about this, Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, and New Mexico are those other four states within the Ogallala. 

I want you to consider water conservation practices happening in Colorado and New Mexico right now. How much have we talked about them in the news with the Colorado Compact? Lots. Or, the state discussions between Colorado and Nebraska where Nebraska wants to ensure its access and allotment to the North Platte Compact. So, let's think about what happens when we over-pump an aquifer and we start to create that zone of depression. 

It's really hard for us to consider the size of the Ogallala and how some areas right now, as we see reports, are nearly out of water, and other areas, it's estimated 60 more years of water is left for Kansas. 85% of all water use is for crop irrigation. And the farther West we go, the higher the percentage that goes up. Let's face it—we’re at least a decade plus into extreme drought in the Western United States, and it's clearly pushing across into mid con, into the rest of the country as we've seen drought monitoring. 

As we look at water districts, the same as the Ogallala, we can't see the impact of our pumping, and as we consider that the government of all eight states have been using voluntary conservation for the past 50 years, here we are with the impact. This leads right into our feature this week, which is the EPA’s study on impact and climate change and where this information is spurring from. 

‘False Hope’ is in The Air: The Heat Streak Has Ended, but Climate Change Remains the Same 

For this week's feature, we're gonna start with an excellent article from one of my favorite journalists. In early August, the Associated Press released a story titled, “July Ends 13-Month Streak of Global Heat Records as El Nino Ebbs, But Experts Warn Against Relief.” Their article was written by one of my favorite climate reporters, Alexa St. John, who also hails from the Mitten State in Detroit, and she writes on climate and clean energy.

She states, “Earth's string of 13 straight months with new average heat records came to an end this past July as natural El Nino climate patterns ebbed, the European climate agency Copernicus announced this on Thursday, August 8th.” What I love about this content is, all too often, we see news stories from the AP that start with atmospheric rivers end drought, record snowfall for the West has saved, 13 straight months and it's over. But no.  

Alexa continues with the statement from Copernicus Deputy Director, Samantha Burgess. That statement, the overall context, hasn't changed. Human-caused climate change drives extreme weather events that are wreaking havoc around the globe, with several examples just in the recent weeks in Cape Town, South Africa. Thousands were displaced by torrential rain, gale force winds, flooding, and more. Fatal landslides hit Indonesia. Beryl left a massive path of destruction as it set the record for the earliest category four hurricane. And, Japanese authorities said more than 120 people died as record heat hit Tokyo. Please go to AP News and read Alexa St. John's content, especially this article that dropped on August 8th.  

As spring ended this year and we headed into summer, the EPA released its study on climate change impacts and indicators. You can go to epa.gov/climate-indicators and see that there are more than 50 indicators that show the cause and effects of climate change. That's what our feature is going to be on this week.  

Again, what have we talked about? We've talked about the USDA, we've talked about OSHA, we've talked about NOAA, we have talked about the EPA, all government branch agencies helping with research that are all on the chopping block when it comes to Project 2025 and what the future looks like.  

So I think we need to really understand what our executive branch agencies are doing to help us and how we need them as we have this extreme weather. I want to hit on some of the most notable: It starts with the globe for July 2024 averaged 62.4 °Fahrenheit, which is 16.91 °C. That's 1.2° above the 30-year average for the month of July. This is according to Copernicus. Temperatures were a small fraction lower in the same period last year. Since 1901, the average surface temperature across the continuous 48 states has risen at an average rate of 0.17 °F per decade. Average temperatures have risen more quickly since the late seventies which increased to 0.51 °F per decade since 1979. 

For the continuous United States, nine of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since 1998, and 2012 and 2016 were the two warmest years on record. Worldwide, 2023 was the warmest year of all time, with it being 2016 as the second warmest year. 2014 to 2023 was the warmest decade on record for planet Earth, and this is by thermometer-based observations that began with our studies. Global average surface temperatures have risen at an average rate of 0.17 as we've done this study and taken a look. 

I want you to consider what's happening here. We have a shift. Of course, we can have the argument that we're not out of an ice age until all the glaciers are melted. We've talked about the ice shelves, we've talked about the glaciers, we've talked about sea level rise. We see that the Department of Defense has a sea level rise climate change impact plan in place.  

So as we look at the North, the West, and Alaska, they've seen temperatures increase the most while some parts of the Southeast have experienced little change. Not all of these regions have upward trends. The data for this indicator was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Centers for Environmental Information. 

Again, these are our executive branch experts. This is what they're up to. This isn't about imposing regulations to stop over-pumping of groundwater or this. It's showing that our water cycle from what we pull from Mother earth to what goes up and comes back around and where it's being pushed has significantly changed. Satellite data that has been analyzed by two independent groups, The global Hydrology and the Climate Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville have remote sensing systems that show these trends.  

So I want you to understand where these trends come from, and it starts with us discussing the standard precipitation evaporational index. The SPEI, which measures the combination of water supply, which is our precipitation, and atmospheric water demand, which is evaporation, and how it's based on temperature. And, as we see significant climate change happening, we see extreme drought, we see extreme moisture in other places, and we see conditions in between. So we start taking this and we look at what the EPA has put out in those 50 indicators and we see that the average temperatures have risen due to climate change and that earth's water cycle has sped up through an increase in rate of evaporation from the earth's surface. 

And this includes soil moisture, lakes, reservoirs, and impacts to plants. So what does this mean for us in the drilling industry? It means we need to get to work. We need to start thinking about our smart groundwater conservation policies. We need to think about how we can be contributing to drilling for groundsource geothermal. Get those big rigs out there and start drilling for deep rock, 700-plus degrees hot rock geothermal, because our climate has changed. And it's a big piece for us to think about.  

I know it's easy for us to say, you know, we don't have enough data, we don't have enough trends. We can see that from the impact of what's happening with the Ogallala and that if we could have went back to 1970, what could we have changed? For example, what effects could we have changed on agriculture? How could we have moved where these water-heavy crops are used?  

We can see with Arizona and the alfalfa farmers from Saudi Arabia, we can see that we have lowered reservoirs, yet that TikTok video starts with, “We have the highest reservoirs that we've had to date.” At the same time that's happening, there is a global environmental disaster about to happen if the Great Salt Lake continues to dry up, and the amount of dust and arsenic and other heavy metals that are gonna come out of there are insane. And so, as you think of how we're impacting our ecosystem, where are these indicators going? The wildfires, the dams breaking, the mudslides, all the way to extreme temps. This is why we have to go to net zero power generation along with net zero heating and cooling. And, if we look at the next piece to that EPA study, in 2022, the US greenhouse gas emissions totaled 6,343 million metric tons. That's 14 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide.  

And if you think about that, that is 3% of a decrease since 1990, and down from a 15.2% from the 1990 levels. We have an opportunity here to drive a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions and thinking about how we use fossil fuel, and what these greenhouse gasses are doing to our environment, to our groundwater, to our atmosphere, and how they will continue. 

And as you go and look at the epa.gov/climate-indicators, you can see this, and there's plenty of data there. And again, these executive branch agencies are showing us that commercial industrial and household uses average about 58% of that production of greenhouse gasses, 28% of that production is transportation. That's why when we saw that $430 million grant in the State of Illinois and they talked about transportation along with heating and cooling transitions to smart buildings and groundsource geothermal, it's because it's all impacting. And if you look at our electric grid and the amount of emissions that come out of that, you know, it's insane. So here we are, again, executive branch agencies giving us the information we need to be able to save Mother Earth, to put the air quality, the water quality, and power production requirements in place. 

And we're now 84 days to November 5th—less. I want you to think about our impact and where we're going from here and how that has impacted our drilling industry, what we can pump in the Ogallala, what we see with the Colorado River compact, what we see as droughts in the Great Lakes. Matter of fact, we don't know if it's a hoax yet or not, but they're chasing an alligator in Lake Erie as we speak because Lake Erie's temperature is 77 degrees and this alligator is just having the time of its life in a Great Lake. Did we ever think we'd see this as a situation right now?  

So drillers, you have an opportunity with the IRA, ground source geothermal drilling, installing loops can be just as beneficial as going out and doing water wells. Go make the strategic partnerships with your HVAC contractors. Go join International Ground Source Heat Pump Association. Go join the Geothermal Drillers Association. Get with your state geothermal associations. Get with the National Groundwater Association. Get with your state water well associations, and think about what we can do here to save our planet and what we have as an opportunity to diversify our business and do something bigger than we could ever imagine.  

Because the potential of us hitting our 2050 goals will change the way our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and legacies—you think about in the news, we spoke about the Cheyenne and the Arapaho who have been working for 150 years to get their land back. What happens in 150 years plain and simple for every citizen in this country? It's time for us to step up our game and become better environmental stewards, start implementing as many geothermal loops as we can, and contribute to this fight for net zero. 

Thank you for joining us for Episode 123 of The Driller Newscast. Head over to thedriller.com. We have great breaking news and content coming out every day. Go to our socials—Facebook, LinkedIn—like and subscribe, all the latest is coming out. We're talking geothermal, we're talking PFAS, we're talking groundwater conservation. We are championing this industry every chance we can.

This is my challenge. If you're a groundwater driller, go join the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association, The Geothermal Drillers Association, and get diversified. Go find your state geothermal association. Get involved. If you're a geothermal driller, am industrial driller, an environmental driller, a construction driller, it's time to get involved with the National Groundwater Association and your state water well Association so we know what's happening with groundwater management and conservation and you can be part of the message. It's only gonna get bigger from here. Go out, be productive. Thanks, everybody.