Services

 A Walsh client seeking to purchase a right-of-way for a highway expansion knew that the property had previously contained a chemical detention pond used for wood treatment. In order to accurately locate the limits of the pond Walsh assessed historic photographs of the site. Images were imported into a GIS and referenced to engineering plans. Historic imagery and new design plans indicated that the proposed highway would intersect the former pond. The roadway was realigned to avoid acquisition of land containing the former detention pond and potential liabilities.

 For 10 years, an oil company has been operating in a block in the Ecuadorian Amazon that has significant environmental impacts from unrelated activities -- previous seismic lines, a pipeline, a commercial agricultural operation, heavy river traffic, etc. The company wanted to determine what impacts existed prior to their lease, and what impacts during their lease are not due to their activities. WALSH purchased a satellite image taken before the company took control of the block, and quantified the areas cleared land using a GIS system. WALSH then ran the same calculations on a recent satellite image, and assigned causes of the damage based on proximity to roads, pipelines, seismic line locations, etc. The result was a map showing impacts that occurred during the company's operation of the block, color-coded to the source of the impact.

 GIS Data Management for Oil & Gas Firm Walsh is supporting a Houston-based oil and gas firm with their GIS data management needs on the west slope of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. The work includes slope analysis, aerial imagery interpretation, personal geodatabase creation, as well as evaluating the potential impact of proposed operations on critical wildlife habitat.

 WALSH was hired to develop current and historic land use maps of two oil field lease block areas by a U.S. oil company operating in the Gulf Coast region. These land use maps are based on historic aerial imagery. The maps assisted the client in identifying potential contamination from oil exploration and production, which was needed to respond to pending claims from residents surrounding two lease blocks, and for an upcoming property transfer. The maps WALSH developed helped the client identify potential sources and receptors of contamination, and thus what contamination may have occurred in the lease block over a 40-year time frame.

 Walsh has been awarded two contracts to provide EnCana detailed imagery and mapping products to support exploration and development in Chad, Africa. Walsh and partner Space Imaging acquired new 1-meter color satellite imagery of remote areas in the Bongor and Doba basins. EnCana is using the data to perform desktop planning for seismic, roads, infrastructure and wells. Desktop planning is reducing corporate risk by minimizing the amount of time personnel are in the field in this politically volatile area. Data was delivered in electronic GIS format and portable electronic and printed map atlases. Radar data was used in conjunction with the imagery to produce a drainage network model and help identify areas prone to flooding. The data is also being used to examine the natural recovery of seismic lines.

 WALSH, as a subcontractor, tested landfarming of oil-contaminated soil from production pits and oil spills to determine optimum operating parameters for bioremediation in the clay-rich, acidic, rainforest soils. A total of 500 cubic meters of soils and pit bottoms were remediated in landfarms. The plots were monitored quarterly for hydrocarbons and microbial activity. WALSH used the RRM system to acquire aerial images of the test sites. The sites were analyzed to identify the area of vegetation coverage. Statistics on vegetation coverage was combined with analytical results in a GIS to identify which treatment was performing better.

 An oil company exploring in Papua New Guinea was required to actively revegetate abandoned exploration well pads if natural vegetation regrowth didn't achieve a specified threshold percentage of coverage. In the local limestone, karstic topography, active revegetation is expensive and often involves airlifting machinery, as evident in wellpad picture shown here. Walsh was hired to use our remote sensing camera system to acquire aerial photograph images of the wellpad over successive years. We used image processing software to map and quantify the amount of natural regrowth on the wellpad, and were able to document to the government that the natural regrowth met the threshold minimum. This saved the company tens of thousands of dollars in revegetation costs.