Project Description
The Cottonwood Creek Basin is located in northwest Oklahoma County. Rapid development in this area continues, with many homes depending on domestic wells for potable groundwater. However, this area also has many old industrial sites including the West Edmond Oil and Gas Field.
ACOG staff monitored six subbasins during the summer of 2010, many in the West Edmond Oil and Gas Field. Comparison of the chloride levels in the streams to a control subbasin (Station 01) not in the old oil field showed a statistically significant increase in the chloride level.
This dataset suggests that there is still significant amount of chloride from legacy oil and gas operations in the Cottonwood Creek Basin.
Final Report
The dataset generated by this sampling project successfully distinguished watersheds outside of the West Edmond Oil Field from the watersheds inside the oil field based on the chloride content of the sampled stream. The difference in median chloride content of the control watershed outside the field and watersheds inside the field was about 50 mg/l. The datasets were different at the 95% significance level.
