| A controversial sour gas well proposal near Calgary has Nick Baiton thinking a lot about sour gas disasters lately.
In 1982, the petroleum engineer was working for oil giant Amoco when one of the company’s sour gas wells in northern Alberta blew, killing two workers and spewing highly toxic hydrogen sulphide in the air for 67 days.
"You could smell it in Calgary," Baiton says. "The reason there were no (civilian) fatalities was because it was a sparsely populated area."
Last December, a sour gas explosion in the mountainous terrain of China’s Kaixian County killed more than 200 workers and injured thousands more.
After working in the petroleum industry for 42 years, Baiton knows such incidents are worst-case scenarios and he acknowledges that stronger regulations governing sour gas have been implemented by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) since the Amoco blowout 22 years ago, making them among the most stringent in the world.
However, Baiton knows that sour gas, or hydrogen sulphide as it is technically known, can be lethal. Those dangers have suddenly become personal to him. Baiton’s 81-year-old mother-in-law lives just 4.8 kilometres downwind of a controversial sour gas proposal by Calgary-based Compton Petroleum, located just outside Calgary’s southeast boundary.
Baiton says if anything goes wrong while Compton is drilling or pumping gas from its six proposed wells, it could be disastrous because the wells sit adjacent to a population of almost one million.
Baiton is not alone. Opposition to Compton’s application and sour gas development is growing rapidly in the heart of Alberta’s oilpatch.
Adding to the concern is the experience of many landowners who have dealt with Compton in the past and describe the company as "arrogant," dismissive of potential dangers and one they simply can’t trust.
OPPOSITION GROWS
Compton Petroleum’s application is controversial because of its location, the number of wells on one site, the high level of hydrogen sulphide within the wells, and, perhaps most contentious, its plans for a reduced emergency planning zone.
Under EUB regulations, the company was required to come up with plans to deal with an emergency within a 15 kilometre area during the proposed well’s most dangerous phases of operation. Such plans, however, would mean evacuating 250,000 Calgarians, so Compton has made an application for a reduced, more manageable emergency-planning zone of four kilometres, utilizing different emergency procedures, such as igniting escaping sour gas if a blowout occurs.
When a sour gas well is ignited, hydrogen sulphide is transformed into sulphur dioxide, which is less immediately dangerous, but still toxic.
Compton says it intends to ignite the well in less than 7.5 minutes of any blowout. Baiton doesn’t believe there’s any guarantee of immediate ignition, and any delay could be deadly.
Sour gas well blowouts aren’t completely uncommon. In March, 2000, for example, a Crestar Energy oil well near Enchant, north of Lethbridge, hit a pocket of sour gas and experienced a blowout. The well wasn’t ignited until the next day. Nearby farms were evacuated, but no one was injured. In May, 2003 there was a blowout at a sour gas well owned by Anadarko Canada Corporation near Vauxhall. The company finally ignited the well after three days of trying to get it under control. In both blowouts, the wells held less than one per cent sour gas, so the companies weren’t required to immediately ignite their wells. No one was injured in any of the incidents.
Baiton has also been researching the recent sour gas explosion in China, and he doesn’t think such an accident can be ruled out here.
"No amount of regulation can prevent accidents or equipment failure," says Baiton. "In my experience with the industry, you can’t guarantee (accidents) won’t happen."
Baiton says the EUB, which oversees Alberta’s petroleum industry and will likely hold a public hearing into Compton’s proposal later this year, should have rejected the applications immediately because there is just too much of a public safety threat.
"I find it appalling that the process has gone to this stage without the EUB having said no… they should have rejected it outright," he says. "The potential for fatality is so great should an accident occur."
Greg Gilbertson, senior advisor of the EUB’s public safety implementation team, says the EUB can’t give "absolute certainty" that no accident will occur at any of the province’s oil and gas developments, but he says public safety is the EUB’s primary concern when considering applications.
"People look for absolute certainty and no one can offer absolute certainty," says Gilbertson. "We will not compromise on safety. If we’re in any doubt we won’t approve an application."
Landowners who live near the Compton site, however, are skeptical about the safety of the proposed wells.
COMPTON’S TRACK RECORD
Gavin Fitch, a lawyer for the Frontline Resident’s Group, which is made up of almost 100 people in the area of the existing wells, says his clients have a lot of concerns about the way Compton conducts itself.
"They just don’t have a lot of warm, fuzzy feeling about the company because of a lot of incidents – an ongoing pattern. Consultation is not very good and there have been some surprises," says Fitch. "I think the concern is (Compton) has grown quickly and still doesn’t have an environmental health and safety department and manager… It’s just an indication of what the priority of the company is."
In 1998, a sour gas pipeline on the site that was owned by Compton leaked twice. The pipeline is now owned by Dynegy, but at a 1999 hearing on the future of the pipeline, the EUB chastised Compton for failing to consult with local landowners about the leaks.
"The board is disappointed in Compton’s actions and notes that Compton should have reacted promptly in notifying landowners and residents of the pipeline leaks to ensure they were informed. Compton should have responded to… requests in a timely manner," states the hearing report.
Florence and Gerald White, who live just over a mile away from the Compton site, say they were exposed to sour gas emissions from an existing Compton well on the same location as the proposed wells. The couple has been advised by their lawyer not to talk to the media until a public hearing into the proposals, but Florence stated during the Dynegy pipeline hearing in 1999 that she "encountered a choking smell that caused her to fall back against the house." Afterwards, she experienced a severe headache, dry heaves, a loss of vision and other health problems that continue today.
Joanne Kettenbach, a farmer in the Vulcan area, has had negative dealings with Compton in the past and sympathizes with concerned landowners near Compton’s current well site.
"I find them to be a company that has no interest in dealing with the people around their operation," she says.
"They’re a very arrogant company and I believe they probably don’t take seriously the implications of something going wrong because of that arrogance.
"They definitely don’t want people standing in their way… They want to go in and drill these wells and to hell with anyone else."
Derek Longfield, vice president of engineering for Compton Petroleum, says the company isn’t making any public comments on its application prior to the public hearing.
"We will be presenting our case publicly at the hearings in September and at that point in time we’ll certainly be prepared to discuss evidence that has been presented," he says.
A HOSPITAL IN THE DANGER ZONE
At this point, more individuals and organizations are lining up against the proposal than standing behind it, including the Calgary Health Region and local and provincial politicians. Brent Friesen, medical officer of health for the Calgary Health Region says Compton’s emergency plans are inadequate.
"Our concern with the proposed sour gas well is given the high concentration of hydrogen sulphide… in the event of an accidental release a large area could be impacted with concentrations that could cause serious injury and even death," says Friesen.
Additionally, at the March 23 public hearing, Friesen said that it would be impossible to evacuate all patients from the proposed new southeast hospital if a blowout occurred.
THE NEED FOR GAS
As public opposition to the plan escalates, Baiton questions why Compton is so determined to drill these six wells. He pulls out Compton Petroleum’s annual report and points to a page with a map of the province of Alberta littered with dots where Compton’s oil and gas properties are and asks why the company feels the need to drill right next to the province’s largest city.
"There’s enough natural gas in the foothills and remote areas. You don’t have to jeopardize residents in the city," he says. "There’s enough oil and gas that is not being produced to last us many, many years. I don’t really think developing around a big city is prudent. To me it is not required." |
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