Lodgepole gas leak a fresh memory

Cliff Whitelock doesn’t know convicted oilpatch bomber Wiebo Ludwig, but he says he can understand his frustration.

While he doesn’t condone the bombing or vandalism of well sites — acts that landed Ludwig in jail in 2000 — Whitelock makes no secret of his own disdain for the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), which regulates the oilpatch.

"I am pissed off with those people totally," he growls.

Whitelock, 79, lived through the Lodgepole sour gas well that blew out of control in 1982, spewing poisonous gas for 67 days. His ranch, southwest of Drayton Valley, was just 40 kilometres away from the Amoco well site.

The gas, which contained 28 per cent hydrogen sulphide, killed two men who were working at the site. Whitelock says exposure to lower levels of the gas on his farm left him sick for weeks with what locals called the Lodgepole flu.

His cattle were also dramatically affected. When Whitelock went to sell them, they were about 200 pounds lighter than his cattle had been the previous year. His machinery and barbed-wire fences rusted prematurely and had to be replaced.

Now ConocoPhillips, which bought Amoco, wants to drill a well containing higher concentrations of sour gas — 37 per cent — less than five kilometres west of Whitelock’s farm. Under new rules, Whitelock may not even be allowed to object.

The company filed an application to drill the well last spring, but withdrew it Wednesday while announcing plans to reapply this week based on rules that greatly reduce the emergency planning zone around the well.

Previously, the well had a 4.2-kilometre emergency planning zone. Anyone inside that radius had standing to object to the well and make presentations to the ERCB at a public hearing. The new rules make the zone less than half that size.

Dar Claypool, whose home is four kilometres from the proposed well, was inside the zone until it was reduced. Now he’s out.

But the 56-year-old rancher says if there was a release from the well in low wind conditions, the heavier-than-air gas would likely creep along the Pembina River Valley where his house is situated.

"Anybody who knows anything about H2S knows that if the wind isn’t blowing hard, it will settle into the lower pockets," says Claypool.

The amended regulations came down in November after the Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that residents who reside in protective action zones around sour gas wells are entitled to be consulted, since the ERCB defined the area as one where people exposed to the poisonous gas could suffer serious harm.

The ERCB responded by saying it made a mistake calculating the size of the zone and has since reduced it. The board maintains the changes don’t compromise safety.

"Despite this error -and its subsequent correction -public safety has been in no way lessened or compromised at any time," says ERCB spokesman Bob Curran.

He says emergency planning zones "are based on the most advanced dispersion modelling science available and are extremely protective of those who reside in proximity to oil and gas development."

But Claypool says the ERCB uses the same information for dispersion modelling that weather forecasters employ, and can be expected to be wrong just as often.

The rancher says the fact that the ERCB was never able to trace the source of a sour gas leak in January 2007 suggests there is still a lot of guesswork to their modelling.

He says a rotten-egg smell of sour gas remained in his basement for four days after that low-level leak. Both Claypool and Whitelock say they just want it done safely and they want to ensure there is adequate compensation for damages if something goes wrong. But if they’re excluded from the emergency planning zone, they can’t raise their concerns.

Whitelock has written to the premier complaining the decision to reduce the size of the zones is an erosion of safety standards. "The company now does not have to contact me regarding these wells and I therefore have no input into the safety aspects of drilling or production of these wells," he wrote in a letter last fall. "This absolutely does not make sense."

An American gas dispersion expert has also questioned the science behind the decision to reduce the size of the zone. Spuming Du, an expert witness at a number of ERCB hearings, says the board is putting Albertans at risk by removing the worst-case scenario from its modelling.

ConocoPhillips says it has drilled seven previous critical sour gas wells without having an incident that required evacuation of the emergency planning zone.

"We take safety in both our drilling and production operations very seriously," says spokeswoman Julie Baron. She says the company will employ numerous safety measures when it drills the well, including blowout prevention equipment, sensors and alarms.

But Whitelock fears the worst if the well began leaking sour gas. "I feel that there is a very high chance that I will be both adversely and directly affected by this (well), but because I am outside of this emergency planning zone circle I may no longer have the right to file an objection, and if I do, I may not get full participatory rights at an ERCB hearing."

dhenton@thejournal.canwest.com