Gas Well Study

We put up another YouTube video yesterday, titled Natural Gas: Blunders and Numbers.

The state was not able to pass new regulations for the oil and gas industry in the most recent session earlier this winter. That’s not really a huge surprise, considering how much pressure the industry was putting on both the legislative and executive branches to do nothing. It’s always putting pressure so that nothing is done which is why things are in the shape they are now: contaminated streams and rivers, contaminated ground water, well site accidents, and more.

Our newest video is about what we’ve seen in our area in respect to industry’s compliance to the state’s laws. It’s not a pretty picture, especially when the numbers get totaled and compared to the 55,000 producing wells in this state. West Virginia has a serious problem.

Attempts now are being made to pass new regulations during an interim session. Our fears are that whatever happens it will be more of the same.

More soon!

We’ve posted two more videos on YouTube for our GasWellStudy channel. The earliest video is titled Natural Gas: Trashing the Surface Owner and is about how operators leave a lot of trash at gas well sites. Some of this trash is from when the well was drilled (such as abandoned portolets) and some is from the production of the well (such as scrap valves and storage tanks). This situation encourages others to leave trash at sites and at one we’ve seen old diapers, tires, bricks, and more dumped.

The more recent video, Bad Well Bad Well Bad Well, was posted last Friday. It’s about gas wells with condensate storage tanks not having adequate secondary containment as required by law. We looked at three older sites along the Pocatalico River with typical problems. The possibility of contamination of the River by crude petroleum is very real. We had a tank at a well near us overflow a couple of years ago. There was no secondary containment so the oil went down over the hillside toward a creek.

We’ve done another video, this one about blacksmithing, that’s also up on YouTube, though at a different channel. The video shows the forging of a Suffolk latch bar and gives an idea of the work that we do in our shop.

We’re loving the video camera though the learning curve has been really steep for the camera and editing software. We think we’re beginning to get a better idea of how to do things. We certainly are a lot more relaxed with the camera.

More soon! Maybe some cat videos.