Rants and Raves from Southeastern Wyoming...where the deer and the antelope really DO play...
Photo courtesy of the Wyoming Tribune Eagle
(See our house??)
The Story of the Well: Life in the Sacrifice Zone
Diagram courtesy of Anadarko
One morning, we noticed the trucks...
Then, this appeared...
Trust me, it was MUCH more magnificent in person...
UPDATE 3/17:
Spoke with 2 Laramie County Commissioners regarding our well.
Kudos to Troy and Diane for taking the time to call. Both were more than willing to speak with me, were very pleasant, and were more than free with whatever information that they had.
Curiously, the State of Wyoming has exempted the oil patch from property taxes (this may be a common practice), meaning that the folks who are absolutely destroying the infrastructure do not have to pony up a nickel for its upkeep. Indeed, they will not be required to pay taxes at all, unless and until the well produces.
18.9 million dollars worth of repairs and maintenance are required on my road, now. The state recently granted Laramie County enough funding to deal with about 15% of that cost...to say nothing of the other roadways that are suffering the same degradation in the county.
Both commissioners have stated that Anadarko has acknowledged the problem, and has offered to help the county with road maintenance.
We'll get rig pictures up, but as of now, they've pared down the operation to tanks, trucks, a few buildings, and a giant flaming ball.
In the video below, the flare is being subjected to a flow of oil/natural gas foam. It is coming at a rate that is 100 times what the equipment was designed to handle, according to Anadarko personnel. Next week, they are bringing a derrick to "position the pumping unit deeper into the formation". This will "even out the kicks" (again, according to Anadarko personnel). The well has been working on and off, while Anadarko tries to route the NG flow into equipment that can handle it. Until then, we get rained on by tiny droplets of oil. Anadarko personnel have made it clear that they will send cleaning crews to correct the issue. Anadarko also provided a number to call when it acts up.
The folks I've spoken to were very nice. We understand that they aren't calling the shots,
they're just doing their jobs.
<sigh>
"Flamer"
"Droplets"
These tiny droplets of oil coat our entire property.
4:50 AM...we thought it had exploded. Lisa closes the shades now, because she believes that if that thing goes off, the shades will stop the flying shards of window glass.
Yesterday, the well caught fire...
Video provided by KGWN.TV
If the embedded video does not function, it may be viewed at:
http://www.kgwn.tv/story/14596301/oil-pumping-unit-causes-grass-fire
Here's the burn...
Update: 6/2011
Spoke with DEQ, today. They cannot regulate the size of the flare. They cannot regulate the noise from the flare. They cannot regulate the noise from the "Atlas generator" (which sounds very much like having a small-arms firing range in the front yard). They cannot regulate the gas flow allowed into the atmosphere. The ONLY thing they can regulate is VISIBLE EMISSIONS. That's it.
Perhaps not curious then, that our Wyoming State nuisance ordinances specifically exempt oil and gas from virtually all regulation.
Here's a link to the regulation: http://legisweb.state.wy.us/statutes/titles/title35/t35ch11.htm
Here's more Wyoming Oil and Gas law: http://www.oilandgasbmps.org/laws/wyoming_law.php
The well was being repaired (god...i hope...) today. They had the small derrick on it, as seen below:
Update: 10/2011
Anadarko re-built our driveway. It's absolutely true. We were having difficulties getting in and out of the place, as our driveway washed away after the seismo testing crews rolled the big trucks through,
collapsing our meager drainage, in the process.
I had spent months working with the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, both seismo companies that were working in the area, and contacts at Anadarko regarding the damage to the driveway. Essentially, the 2 seismo companies denied even testing in the area during the time frame that the damage was done. Turns out, it was a company called Geokinetics, but I was getting a lot of static about producing paperwork in order to get them to move on repairing the damage that they'd done. Cody W., and landman for Anadarko had made several visits to the home, and asked about the condition of the driveway. As Geokinetics had done the testing for Anadarko, Cody told me not to worry about it. I worried anyway, as I knew that winter was coming. I really didn't need to worry...Cody brought a road crew out the next Monday with truckload after truckload of actual roadbed (our driveway was previously dirt), repaired all of the damage, built up the drive, and rebuilt the drainage cuts. It's probably the nicest half-mile driveway in the county, as seen in the photos below:
Good Things have been happening
The County has had Knife River out re-building Campstool Road.
It's getting completely reworked, and looks to be a pretty solid
six-inch thick layer of asphalt, laid upon freshly-reworked roadbed.
They even put a new apron on our new driveway:
More Campstool photos:
The "Atlas" generator has been replaced with an electric-powered unit. While the well is more quiet, our primary concern has always been the flaring. Cody mentioned that Anadarko had been looking into a special flare tip, that would contain the noise and light pollution, but does not address air quality concerns
(and there are SCORES of these open flares in Laramie County).
There has been discussion of a gas pipeline, but I can't quite figure out where the "sticking" point is, be it county objections to permitting, foot-dragging by Anadarko, or bureaucratic obstacles at the state level. At any rate, if we are going to have wells (and were are), we should permit the pipeline for methane collection,
rather than flaring the methane.
Flares are incredibly loud, stink, and burn brightly 24-7.
New well going in right off of Campstool...
The rig is the SST 54, a sister-rig of the SST rig that drilled our well.
Visit the FrackingForum to discuss fracking.
