| Florence White is used to people treating her with derision when she describes how she almost got knocked down by sour gas on her farm southeast of Calgary.
But White, a youthful looking 68-year-old grandmother with reddish hair, remains adamant that one day seven years ago, she was exposed to sour gas while walking down the steps of her deck into her front yard. White doesn’t know where the sour gas came from, but she lives close to two Compton Petroleum sour gas wells as well as a sour gas pipeline that at the time was owned by Compton. White is convinced the sour gas came from one of the three.
"I felt very scared," she says.
White explains that she felt a burning in her eyes, throat and on her skin. She says she stumbled into her house but was unable to tell her husband what was wrong because she couldn’t speak.
"I was so weak I could hardly get around. I didn’t feel like eating and I was extremely tired," says White.
She says even now if she smells sour gas, she gets a "fierce" headache and becomes nauseous.
Just a short drive down the road is her son George White’s farm. George says a few years ago he and his family smelled sour gas while inside their house. He says he, his wife and three kids weren’t physically affected but it made him extremely nervous about what could happen in the future.
The Whites are all amazed that the EUB (Energy and Utilities Board) has given Compton Petroleum the go ahead to proceed with four new sour gas wells near their homes, on the condition that the company is able to meet various requirements.
"I was pretty pissed off actually. I figured there’s no way they should even take the chance of endangering all the people it’s endangering. There’s nothing in the world that’s foolproof," says George.
The four proposed wells would be built at the same location as one of Compton’s current wells, which is 800 metres from George White and his family and about 1.6 kilometres from Florence and her 75-year-old husband Gerald. The site of the proposed wells is close to several new suburban communities that have recently been developed along Calgary’s southeast edge.
In order for Compton to drill the wells, the company will have to come up with an emergency response plan for a 9.7-kilometre area around the well
including a 5-kilometre evacuation zone and a 4.7-kilometre sheltering zone (sheltering means staying inside your home during an emergency). The EUB rejected Compton’s application for a reduced emergency planning zone (EPZ) of 4 kilometres. Compton will now be required to work with the City of Calgary, the M.D. of Rockyview and the Calgary Health Region (CHR) to come up with a new emergency response plan for an area that contains thousands of people. Both the city and the CHR opposed Compton’s application at the public hearing.Some observers have called the EUB decision a compromise, but the Whites don’t see it that way.
Florence often thinks about the 15 dead birds that she found in her farmyard between 2002 and 2004, which she believes were killed by sour gas exposure.
"There’s probably lots more I didn’t find because I have a lot of cats," says Florence. "With Compton at the helm, I do not feel secure."
Nick Baiton, whose 82-year-old mother-in-law would be in the so-called "sheltering" zone, is outraged by the decision. Baiton has spent 44 years as a petroleum engineer in the oil and gas industry and he says there’s no way that the company would be able to contact thousands of people in time if there was a blowout and potentially lethal sour gas was released into the air.
"A five-minute common sense look at it should’ve said no. This is too close to the city. We can’t afford the risk," says Baiton. "There’s no technology today that prevents human error and equipment failure."
However, Bob Curran, spokesperson with the EUB, says the decision is a "very fair and balanced decision that ensures that public safety is respected."
No one from Compton returned Fast Forward’s phone calls. |
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