Good morning. Welcome to episode 125 of The Driller Newscast, a weekly update on the news and stories impacting the construction, drilling, geothermal, and groundwater industries. I'm your host, Brock Yordy. This week in the news, we're going to start in space, looking down at Texas, as we see places in West Texas limiting water to residents out of fear of wells running dry. 

NASA and the GRACE program are looking at reservoirs and groundwater around the world, and we can see that in two pieces that they just released on reservoir data for the Rio Grande on the Texas-Mexico border. And then again with Lake Powell, Lake Mead, and the Colorado River. 

For our feature this week, let's talk about the conferences you must attend in September and October with a great discussion with Christine Hoffer, Executive Director of the New York Geothermal Drilling Association. But before we jump into all this great news, who's your competent person on site? Let's talk some safety.

Determining Your Competent Person for Safety 

This week in safety, OSHA is under fire. Are we putting our employees in the line of fire as we see new guidelines come out? We talk about executive branch agencies being overreaching and that we should be capable of making the rules because we have our employees' best interests at heart. But I want you to think about that. 

Because 22 men died by the end of June 2022, and another 18 were lost by the end of the year, 40 total in trench collapses. We look at heat exhaustion situations. It all falls back to the competent person on site. Who is that competent person? 

OSHA uses the term ‘competent person’ many times in standards and documents. An OSHA ‘competent person’ is defined as “one who is capable of identifying existing and predictable hazards in the surroundings or working conditions that are unsanitary, hazardous, or dangerous to employees and who has the authority to take prompt corrective measures to eliminate them.” 

We can find that in the OSHA book that we should all have in our company in 29 CFR 1926.32(f). When it comes to training, it says, “By the way of training and/or experience, a competent person is a knowledgeable individual of the applications and standards and is capable of identifying workplace hazards relating to specific operations and has the authority to correct them.” 

What does this mean? As we start writing comments back about the OSHA heat rules, lightning safety, extreme weather or falls, electrocution, struck-by, caught-in-betweens, or mental health—This is what it means. No course creates a competent person. 

I'll state that again: No course creates a competent person. Just because I have an OSHA 30 or 10 or I become an authorized trainer, that doesn’t mean I’m the ideal competent person on site. 

It makes you more educated and knowledgeable, but as we jump into the drilling industry, I want you to think about those standards. A knowledgeable person—that competent person—requires experience, understanding of standard operating procedures, job safety analysis and risk assessments, the hazards, and how to mitigate risk and protect your employees. 

And at the end of the day, as we dive deep into this for OSHA, who a company deems a competent person has nothing to do with the certificate. So, as we hire safety professionals, we have them out there helping us mitigate risk, and you say, “Oh, you got the book and the clipboards, and now you must know more.” No. As a company, we have put our trust in that authorized person to be the competent person as we get into derricks, masts, rigging, scaffolding, falls, confined spaces, trenches, silica, electricity, and arc flash. It's about the knowledgeable individual that we appoint as the competent person with the entire team's authority to understand the predictable risks, the hazards, and what is deemed an unsanitary condition. We should all have the ability to say stop. We should all have the ability to come together and have a discussion when there are major hazards on site. 

But at the end of the day, as you go in and you start looking at these discussions in OSHA, there are many letters that OSHA has responded to about what deems a person a competent person, and yes, more training is important, knowledge is important, standard operating procedures and standard safety policies are important; But at the end of the day, it's the trust the company has put into the individual in deeming them the competent person that matters most of all. 

And if you end up being that competent person on site, from your safety knowledge, industry knowledge, and everything that has built you into the great professional you are today, understand that if you put an individual on a trench and it collapses, you are just as liable. And did you do your trench inspection? Did we have the right means of egress? Was it sloped? Was it short? Was it benched? 

As we have that person open that electrical box, do we have the right arc flash gear? As we have somebody decide to climb beyond 5 feet, do they have the right fall protection? Who is the competent person? Yes, we train our people to be safety smart, to have an OSHA 10, to have an OSHA 30, to have our HAZWOPER, whatever we need. But at the end of the day, one person on site has the ultimate authority. That authority has to be trusted, respected, and understood that it wasn't designated by OSHA. It was designated by you, the owner, the senior leadership, or the shareholders. And that's what I want you to think about. As we make comments on how our team should know better when you need water, and the site is too hot, or why we let him climb that mast without fall protection, who's the competent person outside? Go out, be safe.

NASA’s GRACE Program and Groundwater 

For this week in the news, there's a lot of conflicting data out there right now about reservoirs being beyond capacity, water releases, that we are fully out of this drought, that we have the precipitation, the storms—we just saw snowfall in the Sierras in August, which is a great gift. But let's get grounded on this, and to get grounded, we're going to jump in a space shuttle and head to space. At the end of July and August, NASA released reports from their GRACE satellite program, which is in conjunction with the German government; we're all working together to monitor water, glaciers, groundwater, and surface water around the world. 

In mid-July, it was evaluated that the Amistad reservoir, which is in the Rio Grande, everybody, between Texas and Mexico and has a joint compact to keep water in there. We're having big-time issues, right? 

They released data showing that it was at a record low of 1048 feet. Two years ago, they had said it hit an all-time record low. I want you to think about the end of August and the excessive heat that Texas and the South have experienced. In reality, we shut jobs down in Chicago last week due to excessive heat. So, the Midwest and Northeast saw the same thing, and Texas and Mexico had been experiencing these heat domes. 

Mexico City is nearly at water rationing right now for its 22 million residents. So, we see the impact that the GRACE Program was able to show us. And then just last week, NASA reported Lake Powell and Lake Mead images and took a look over the last six years of the GRACE research and combined that with the previous several decades to show operating levels, which, you know, we've just had big discussions about the Bureau of Reclamation and the Department of Interior and how we look at this. Where do we get this data from? Not just weather, because weather is unpredictable, but we can see the trends. 

NASA has been doing this since we sent good men and women to space. From the extreme pollution and water impacts we saw as we were doing the moon missions, which created the Clean Water Act and the EPA, we have been thinking about it this way for six decades. 

NASA has collected data on Earth's land, water, air, and climate. This data is used to inform decision-makers on ways to mitigate, adapt, and respond to climate change. All of NASA's Earth science data is available for scientists and the public to assess in a variety of ways. 

This is a statement from NASA: “NASA studies our whole planet as its interconnected systems more than any other planets in our universe.” This came from the Director of NASA Earth Science Division, Karen St. Germain. She continues, “A Passage of Water’ provides an opportunity to highlight the public availability of SWOT data and other NASA Earth science data to tell meaningful stories, improve awareness, and help everyday people who have to make real decisions in their homes, businesses, and communities.” 

We've talked about the GRACE satellites and how they have been creating a complete map of Earth's gravitational field, and they do this every 30 days. Why are we talking about gravity if we're talking about water? Gravity determines mass. So, while most of our planet's mass is land along with the core, it doesn't move much in 30 days. However, water and ice do, causing Earth's gravity to shift. By tracking these changes in GRACE, we can identify how much ice sheets and glaciers are shrinking. GRACE data is used extensively to determine mass changes in the world's land for ice sheets, ice fields, ice caps, and mountain glaciers. Why? Because that's our water ecosystem. It also adds mass through our precipitation and loss from the melting of those glaciers and run-off into the ocean. 

So, as we see greater gains in land ice and mass, we see sea level rises. We've talked about this. Over 200,000 properties and 400,000 Americans by 2030 will be displaced due to flooding. Over the last decade or so, losses from land ice have been implicated in causing two-thirds of the observed rise in sea level. So, as we talk about the skepticism or we speculate that we have these reservoirs in the Northwestern part of the country that are overfilled and that we don't need to conserve water, we can see these impacts, the melt, climate change, and we can see what's shifting. This connects with what we see in these reservoirs shrinking, which immediately tells us what's going on with the impacts of groundwater. 

And as you go to the Associated Press and Reuters right now, you can see West Texas communities rationing water. We can see more discussions about the Ogallala. We can see more discussions about Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. We have big impacts, and this is another point of this. Through this data, we are starting to call the droughts that we're having right now ‘megadroughts.’ 

When it comes to this reservoir data that we just looked at for Texas and Mexico, they've collected enough data to calculate that we are short 4.6 million acre-feet of water in the Amistad reservoir, which is about 33%. So, we've talked about the strategic water reserves that the White House spoke about in December of last year. And then again, in May, we have these scientists with NGWA right on top of this. What did they say? 

They said, ‘groundwater doesn't instantly replenish itself and that it can take centuries,’ and they are protecting groundwater. So what should we be doing with this data? We can use this data along with scientists, communities, groundwater protection, and water well regulations to help embrace the science versus our tribal knowledge and to help conserve groundwater. Go check out the GRACE program at NASA. There are so many cool images. There's so much to be looked at. 

It needs to be a bigger part of our weekly thought process as groundwater professionals—or as drilling professionals intersecting these aquifers for geothermal, construction, or other applications. At the end of the day, just as we harness geothermal to have more reliable heating, cooling, and power generation, groundwater is protected from the elements. Still, it's only protected if we can serve it appropriately. 

For this week's feature, it's a short week. It's already September 3rd when you're seeing this, and we're in crunch time, right? Labor Day is done. We're pushing before snow flies and before the end of the year. But I need you to start thinking about what conferences you should be paying attention to in September and October. So, hey, drilling industry professionals, scientists, and engineers, the two conferences that I will be attending that need to be on your radar are at the end of September, the National Drilling Association DRILLEXPO, and at the end of October, the NY-GEO Conference New York City in Brooklyn.

So, on September 25th and 26th, at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland, Ohio, we have the National Drilling Association DRILLEXPO 2024. This is going to be a killer event. You're going to wanna be there.

It kicks off with a golf outing, then on to some fun at a brewery and ice cream tour, and it finishes the evening with a National Drilling Association rooftop social. Then, early Thursday morning on the 26th, it kicks off with the keynote speaker, Patrick Nelson, talking about inspiring your workforce. Then, it's a full-day event discussing new technologies and drilling. 

I'm really excited to see ‘Developing the correct JSA’ by Cascade. Then, that evening, we'll have the President's dinner, which will showcase the coveted safety awards and lifetime achievement award. It's a great event to be at. For Episode 126 of The Driller Newscast, we will have Sam Connelly, president of the National Drilling Association, and we'll talk more about this great event. 

Today, I have a special guest as well. And that's executive director Christine Hoffer of the New York Geo Association. On October 21st through the 23rd, the New York Geo New York City 2024 will be held at the New York Brooklyn Bridge Marriott. It's going to be an awesome event.  

It starts with some site tours and seeing some active drilling sites. And then, of course, we'll have all the great round tables and educational sessions that you're not going to want to miss. If you have not registered, get your pencil out right now because from now to September 5th, you’ve got a couple of days here where you can use a secret code to reopen the early bird rate. That secret code? You want to guess? That's right.

DRILLER. All capitals. Capital D-R-I-L-L-E-R. This episode was brought to you by Sesame Street. No, joking. Go type in all capitals ‘DRILLER’ and get the early bird special if you haven't already registered. I hope to see you there. We'll be at The Driller booth. Let's have some great conversations. And now, let's jump into a great interview with Christine. 

She's at the event space during this interview, and it's super busy. The entire New York Geothermal Board of Directors has been very busy, and we're lucky that we got a chance to hijack some of Christine's time. I want you to go to the website ny-geo.org to register. Now, let's jump into this great discussion with Christine.

NY-GEO Brooklyn Interview with Christine Hoffer 

Brock Yordy:  

So this October, we have NY-Geo in Brooklyn. And yes, we've already had our NY-Geo event in Albany, and it was a great success, with so many amazing professionals in discussions ranging from workforce development and thermal networks to everything we need to be looking at. That was in the Spring. And now, we're rolling into the last three months of the year, and we have Brooklyn. And if you came away inspired after the April Albany event, the site tours and the schedule being put together for this one, this is a must-see.  

So I was able to snag Christine, Executive Director of the New York Geo Association, to talk with us really quick about what she's excited about and why you must be at this event. Good morning, Christine. 

Christine Hoffer:  

Hey, good morning. I think, first and foremost, for folks who will be listening to this in podcast form, you want to complete your registration in the next two days because rates will increase. So register now. 

Brock Yordy:  

Yes, yes. There's not going to be a better opportunity to be in our biggest city in the country and discuss all of the epic events that are going on right now. From the thermal networks in place to the success of 1 Java, the rest of New York is blazing the way when it comes to becoming a decarbonized, sustainable city. So, what should we expect to see in NY-Geo Brooklyn? 

Christine Hoffer:  

Well, you should expect to see all the same stuff. All the great stuff that you've seen in Albany, just, sort of on steroids, maybe? [chuckles] So we're looking at a full conference, and in Albany, we shorten it a little bit. But we will have 9 PDH credits available, which we're very excited about. The site tours, as you mentioned, will be a new element that we will add this year, which will be on October 21st, on that Monday. Registration for them should be up by the middle of next week. We just have one site we are trying to confirm, but each tour will include two different sites.  

So you pick one tour, and then you go to two different sites, and they’ll include Java 1, which you mentioned already. We're working on a couple other pretty exciting destinations as well. One of the things that's holding us back on announcing them is we want to make sure that we're picking sites that do have some drilling going on because that's a very important aspect of geothermal as everybody knows. And so, we want to see that in action and really talk about how you can drill in urban environments like New York City. It's different than really anywhere else because there's so much other infrastructure underneath the ground. How do you make sure that you're aware of that and ensure that everybody's safe and that you get what you need? 

The 500 ft rule will help with some of that, allowing less boreholes so that you have them at a deeper depth. So we'll talk about that kind of stuff as well. John Ciovacco, who is putting together the schedule, has some really amazing content that will be coming at everybody, content that we haven't already talked about, and things that we do need to talk about. 

So, one of the things that we're contemplating and really want to do is the driller apprenticeships. How do we make sure that we are ready and good to go with the drilling aspect of geothermal? The apprenticeship program is really important. And I know you and I have talked a lot about this, but getting at the kids at a younger age. So, you know, in high school, when they're thinking about going directly into the workforce and choosing drilling as a career for their future, we need to get them in high school. So we need to talk about the schools and getting drilling to the high schools so that when they come out of high school, they're ready to go right into an apprenticeship program.  

That way, it's not, “I'm out of high school now. What do I do?” They have to take the training. Let's get it done early. So we're talking about that, so we make sure we're scaled up from a drilling perspective and ready to, you know, turn the switch and go GEO. 

Brock Yordy:  

Yeah, it's very exciting. By the time this event happens and this newscast drops, I will be in Boston teaching the first 15 new-to-the-industry students. These are not family members; these are not individuals who worked in construction and said, “Hey, I should be part of drilling.” These are individuals who went, “This seems like a really great career, and I'm going to dedicate 80 hours to see if I can place myself.” To that urban drilling aspect, we're used to parking lots and football fields and being able to fence a big piece off. This new venture into being able to drill in an alley, on a side street, or a green space highlights that drilling isn't about crazy production. It's about how to become a good neighbor and steward and have good noise mitigation. It's like being on a stage. We get a chance to drill some geothermal on Broadway, right? 

You suddenly have folks that are going to be walking by going, “Oh, we can do this,” or we can have folks walking by like that old Guardian article from 2014 that says, “They're drilling geothermal next to my house right now, and I want to blow my brains out.” We have the two dichotomies here. And the only way we hit our net zero goals is to be able to do this urban drilling and thermal networks. 

And more importantly, as you said, high school students, middle school students, college students—From now to 2050 is such an exciting time, and it's cool to see New York Geo having a Brooklyn event because, you know, in Albany, we get right to work and we have all these great discussions, but now we're in the hustle and bustle of the big city. 

Brooklyn has a ton going on, as does Manhattan. And then, as you look across the island, if we can figure out how to execute there, we can do it anywhere in the world. 

Christine Hoffer:  

New York, New York!  

[Brock and Christine laugh] 

Brock Yordy:  

So if folks are coming to see a drilling job site and obviously, we're a drilling media platform, and due to weather and drilling situations and stuff, it is like herding cats to secure that we will physically be drilling a real borehole on the day. But, you know, John and team planning this are going to get it done. But do we need hard hats and boots and that stuff or will we be isolated? What do we need to bring? 

Christine Hoffer:  

Yeah, so we will have PPE available at the sites that we need it. Unless people are comfortable in their own PPE. So feel free to bring it. But we will advise what sites you need it on and if you need it at all.  

Brock Yordy:  

I am so excited. You know, maybe some people are going to other places for events. 

But damn it, New York is where it's at, and Governor Hochul and New York Geo’s board and OG’s that have been pushing this, this is just a combination of a really great place for us to be in 2024. Because let's face it, we have five years to hit these goals. 

Christine Hoffer:  

Yes, definitely. And you know, we at NY-GEO are very appreciative of everybody who contributes and supports what we're trying to do. Without that support, we would not be able to put on this conference. So, you know, thank you to all of our sponsors and exhibitors for stepping forward and supporting what we're doing. 

Brock Yordy:  

And I think that's the last piece I want to hit on is, okay, so you're in Colorado, or you're in Texas, or you're somewhere else in the country, and you're thinking, “Why would I come to Brooklyn? They're going to talk about New York Geo.” What I've learned in the last couple of years of being part of this event is the collaboration on the East Coast and then going West, the international cooperation; this is a think tank hub of industry professionals all working towards common goals. And again, if we can do it on an island in the biggest city in the United States, we can do it anywhere. 

Christine Hoffer:  

Right. Definitely. So, we can drill.  

Brock Yordy:  

Drill, drill, drill! Yeah. Well, thank you for your time today. 

Christine Hoffer:  

Yeah. Thank you, Brock. Thank you for your team's support. Geothermal is, you know, the best application for decarbonizing and electrifying the world! 

Brock Yordy:  

Thanks, Christine. We are very excited about this conference. I can't wait to get to Brooklyn. It's going to be a great time. I want you to think right now: Who's your competent person on site? Who are we entrusting the safety and security of our business and our people with? Check out NASA, the GRACE program, and the proven science behind what's happening with our water. 

Check out thedriller.com. We have great content coming out all the time, from J.J., our Washington DC correspondent, to Sammy in Idaho, talking about things in the Western United States. We are looking for more contributing writers. If you have a story, contact me at questions@askbrock.com, and I will set you up. 

We need to start thinking about the end of this year and what we want to focus on in 2025. Go out, be safe. Get signed up for the National Drilling Association’s DRILLEXPO and New York Geothermal’s Brooklyn conference. Hello, New York, New York! It's going to be a lot of fun. Thanks, everybody.