Gas Well Workshop
Session Three Exercise
The goal is to upload photos and videos to share
Digital photos and videos taken while looking at a well site are useful documentation. Digital cameras take photos or videos; a special video camera isn’t required. Smart phones work, too. Videos don’t need to be long or specially edited to be effective. Editing video or photos is possible using programs included with Windows or MacIntosh computers, but if you find yourself working with photos or videos much, you’ll probably need something more sophisticated.
Some Workshop participants may already have Photobucket (or similar photo sharing website) and/or YouTube accounts and know how to use these websites for uploading photos and videos to share. Both websites are free.
In this exercise you’ll create an account (if you don’t already have one) for Photobucket (photobucket.com). Both photos and videos can be uploaded into your Photobucket account.
To use Photobucket you’ll need the latest version of Flash. You can download it from Photobucket if the version you’re using isn’t recent.
Photobucket allows users to create albums for storing photos and videos. This is useful in sorting (such as keeping personal and well photos separate).
We use the links Photobucket provides for photos on our blog; Photobucket acts as the image server. For the Workshop, photo and video links will be reported when filling out an online well site report form.
If you have videos, you’ll need to create a YouTube account (http://www.youtube.com/) if you don’t already have one. The difference between YouTube and Photobucket for videos is that YouTube publishes your video so anyone can see it. We’ve found that our YouTube videos have attracted much more notice from industry and the Office of Oil and Gas than anything else we’ve done.
Say you’ve found a problem well, make a video and put it on YouTube. Include the video’s YouTube link when you send an email to the Office of Oil and Gas. Not happy with what you’re seeing in the well field, tell your legislators and send YouTube links.
YouTube requires a high speed internet connection, which we don’t have. Our local library does have high speed and computers we can use. (Or we take our laptop and use the free WiFi hotspot.) This is how we uploaded videos for the Workshop.
After uploading the video on YouTube, take an extra minute’s care in the video title and text that goes along with it. Either give a link to your blog post where there’ll be more information or in the text box include information such as the well’s API number, county and state, and the problems noted.
2013 Gas Well Workshop
About the Workshop
Session 1
Session 2
Session 3
Materials Used for the Workshop
Reporting Wells
Gas Well Study is the examination of natural gas wells in West Virginia.
Underground Injection Control Class 2 Wells
These wells are used either for the disposal of oil and gas liquid waste or for the enhanced recovery of oil or natural gas.
Gas Well Study Site Visits
Annual reports, environmental assessments, and individual well information.
YouTube Videos
Select videos from the Gas Well Study YouTube channel.
What Happened at Fernow
An investigation into what caused the vegetation death in the land application area after landspraying hydraulic fracture flowback waste.
The Spill at Buckeye Creek
An investigation into a spill from a Marcellus well site into Buckeye Creek in Doddridge county.