Soil stockpile age does not impact vegetation establishment in a cold, arid natural gas field

Abstract

Land reclamation is critical to ensure surface disturbance associated with natural gas development is not permanent. Soil management is critical to reclamation success, especially in environments which are challenged by aridity. Typically, natural gas well pad construction involves stripping topsoil to allow for equipment to be on level ground and placing it into a stockpile. After well pad construction is complete, soil is respread and seeded across a large portion of the initial disturbance to initiate interim reclamation. With the advent of new extraction technologies (e.g., directional drilling), it is not always known how many individual wells will be placed on a given well pad until results from exploratory tests are examined. Previous research has shown soil disturbance during natural gas well pad construction and subsequent reclamation in cold, arid environments is highest at the stripping and respreading phases, with minimal soil activity occurring during the stockpile phase. Other research has shown that additional soil disturbances after reclamation is initiated may exacerbate soil damage, limiting revegetation potential. However, no studies have been conducted to determine if soil stockpile age impacts vegetation emergence. Here, we examine soil stockpiles which are 1-7 years old in the Jonah Infill natural gas field for vegetation emergence and vegetation cover using an image analysis software called SamplePoint. In a ten-week greenhouse experiment, we found vegetation cover across stockpile age-classes increased uniformly during the study period but that there was no significant difference in rate of vegetation cover increase or percent vegetation cover over time. These findings suggest it may be better to keep soil stockpiled in cold, arid natural gas fields when it is uncertain if additional construction activities will be required on a well pad location rather than respreading soil with a chance that redisturbance is necessary.