An Outing

Yesterday, Molly and I took a break (sort of a break, anyway) and hiked in the Amherst Plymouth Wildlife Management Area that’s just north of Bancroft. We were there last year looking at wells and this year we did the same, though the hike was a lot longer.

The Wildlife Management Area has lots of roads (mostly to service the large number of gas wells within its boundaries), but normally the entrance gate is locked and vehicles are prohibited (except the well service vehicles). This time there was a lot of activity. Cabot is drilling a very deep well just east, up on the ridge, from the UIC well we looked at last year. Very deep means 14,000 feet or more deep. A Marcellus well in the area is relatively shallow, less than 5,000 feet.

The rig was up and trucks were going back and forth, though not an unusually large amount of traffic. The company doing the actual drilling is Sidewinder Drilling of Houston. They are using a closed loop system so there are no pits – large trucks were being filled with cuttings when we were there. The cuttings will be going to a solid waste facility that can accept that kind of waste.

The photo was taken when we were about 2,000 feet from the drill site.

We looked at wells, examined sediment controls, did our usual thing, but what I remember best is standing in a field which had several different kinds of flowers on tall stalks, they were almost chest high. Looking up I could see a large number of dragonflies overhead.

September 9, 2014