An oilfield worker responded to a nighttime call to check on a pump house. A pump had failed, causing a leak of produced water contaminated with hydrogen sulfide. After the worker failed to come home when expected, his wife, knowing the location, went to look for him. Exposure to hydrogen sulfide in the pump house killed them both; criminal charges followed.

A US Department of Justice (DOJ) press release announced a guilty plea by the worker’s employer. A company vice president and a related company also pleaded guilty.

CAA Negligent Endangerment
The vice president pleaded guilty to negligent endangerment under the Clean Air Act (CAA) and was sentenced to five months in prison. According to DOJ’s press release, he “admitted that he should have controlled hydrogen sulfide emissions as part of his duties and that because he did not, he placed others in imminent danger of death.”

Inadequate Respiratory Protection Program
The company admitted the same criminal negligence as the vice president. It also pleaded to a separate charge “that it willfully violated the Occupational Safety and Health Act regulations requiring companies to implement respiratory protection programs to address hazards like those at the facility.”

The company agreed to pay a $1 million fine and to a period of probation. During probation, the company must “maintain a set of improvements it made after the tragedy.”

Filing False Information
The related company agreed to pay a $400,000 fine for making false statements about injection well testing for the company’s oil operations. The company submitted test results to the Railroad Commission of Texas claiming they were of specific wells when it knew they were not tests of those wells. During its year of probation, that company must hire a qualified third party to conduct or witness its testing.

To see the news release https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/oilfield-company-its-executive-and-support-services-company-plead-guilty-and-are-sentenced