Sour Gas Well Blow Out in B.C. today
It was reported today [Feb 24 2010] that there has been another sour gas well blowout in northwestern B.C., with a release of deadly H2S gas. Nobody was killed.
This follows the sour gas leak from last year, an incident that was barely reported, like this one will be barely reported.
If this blowout had not caught fire, there would have been a major catastrophe. The gas industry had pretty good technology for making sure that when sour gas wells do blow out they catch fire, that is on purpose so the sour gas will be neutralised.
With just a slight breeze, like 10 km/hr, the nearest home would be inundated by sour gas in less than one hour, and it took THREE hours for the emergency notice to be sounded in this blowout today.
Sour gas kills almost instantly at concentrations of just 500 parts per million [ppm]; you won't survive even a few breaths at 50 ppm. Some sour gas wells are 50% sour [500,000 ppm].
This blowout was only about 20 kms from Weibo Ludwigs home at Hythe. Weibo says: "It's rather providential that this thing blew up while we were protesting, insofar as it punctuates our concerns"
Right on Weibo, it is good to hear you speak now that they have let you out of jail.
This leak today shows that the real danger is not from protestors, but from ongoing operations of sour gas wells.
It was yesterday actually
And wouldn't it be NE BC?
yep
Ya it was yesterday. Apparently it's still burning but now they are reporting that it's only sweet gas at that site. I take everything from the ERCB with a large grain of salt.
Yup, I got almost all the details wrong!! Of course, North EASTERN BC [northwest Alberta area] . And Feb25.
So-fuckin-ory.
News coverage of this important event was almost non-existent. Global ran the story on the morning news, as "breaking news", but it was dropped for the supper and late night news.
Remember the days and days of coverage when Weibo was coming from or going to jail? Or whenever one of the protestors bombs blew open a pipeline? Important stories, I agree, but therefore so is this one, because it is the "other half of the story".
What is the other half of this story? - That the natural gas extraction bonanza in northeast BC is unsafe, unregulated, and kept from the public spotlight. The lack of safety and inadequate training was evident again today as the alarms did not go off for several hours, and locals downwind were evacuated long after a sour gas cloud would have reached them if the well had not caught fire right away.
Government is dependant on the royalties, and they don't want to do anything to slow down the flow of gas and cash. Who knows what benefits flow to whom.
Locals in the area of sour gas wells are seeing their fences rust in just a few years due to the acidity, which is affecting many things besides fences [amphibians die out first, their eggs cannot tolerate acidity].
Health concerns are kept quiet. Locals have told about victims being paid off to keep quiet - people wonder where their neighbors have gone, they just packed up and left.
The media complicity is evident in that they pulled the story today. Keeping the public in the dark shows that something untoward is in the air, something sour.
:) I quoted you there to show that you had the date right in your first sentence.
And ya, I had to find the news article on CBC Edmonton, as it wasn't on the BC site that I could find. Drowned out by the olympics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqGAf-BZTSU
Whats happening is guilt.
GENEVA CONVENTION Part IV Civilian Population
Article 54
Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population
1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.
2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
What usually happens here is some conservative type will point out that this convention is for times of war....but here is the problem:
If you can't treat your worst enemies like this how can you treat your own people? That's where the government , the police the media and the obvious perfortrator - the corporation are at fault.
What they do us cause people to move away..by intimidating them, or by poisoning them or there livestock...there crops etc etc. All criminal and some will say terrorism, and here we all are voting and carrying on like nothing is happening. You have to wonder if there may be a conflict of interest situation going on regarding the media.
We know the CBC is owned operated and stacked by the government they also are a benificiary of oil and gas revenue...We know the oil and gas industry is rich and powerful and under a variety of umbrella corporations could possibly be major investors in the other two conservative leaning networks.
I guess we all know by now that our government doesn't have any respect for the Geneva convention but when they don't even have respect for Canadian lives that's quite another story. All these incidents regarding oil and gas over the years are mounting up. Then you ask ..Where is our protection? The saddest answer of all...protecting the criminals from you the victim. That's the cold hard truth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkM5eyN8ytI&feature=user
meanwhile, all those who have resource extraction and transmission "stocks" by way of their pensions, mutal funds and RRSPs, do not give a tinkers damn, as it is all about them and their future ability to retire in the manner that they believe they should have.
Never discount peoples self absorbtion and greed.
Lock up all the protesters if they cause property damage against a corporation but don't even rap the knuckles of those same corporations when they ENDANGER the lives of citizens living close to their pipelines.
The home owners and other residents cannot refuse to have these poisonous pipelines and wells on their homesteads and if they protest they will have the RCMP searching their property with great fanfare. They will then be slandered by the CBC even thought the cops didn't find a single piece of incriminating evidence.. If I went to the CEO's neighbourhoods and let off a substance down wind of their homes that merely smelled like sour gas I would be arrested and dealt with severely as someone terrorizing them.
But the BC oil show will never be properly regulated because both the NDP and Liberals are addicted to the dirty money.
They are not even telling us if the fire is out yet or not. Geez, house fires makes the news, where is this story? Maybe it is being ignored because "nobody lives there" - NOT!!
I did find some info on the internet - they say the fire "may burn for days"... as they figure out the safest way to put out the fire and contain the blowout. Still, it cannot be good to have fires like that burning for days and days.
I wonder how sour this well is... we had some near Sundre that were said to be 90%, but most wells labelled sour are 5% to 20% H2S. If the fire goes out, that sour gas will be very dangerous - one whiff and you die if it is not diluted by the air when it hits you. They have to contain the well and snuff the fire at the same time I imagine... sounds very dramatic - lets make a TV reality show of it and show how the gas can knock over a cow if things don't go smoothly [oops, sorry animal rights - lets use Premier Campbell].
If it was sweet gas they would put it out full stop, that they are having to figure it out means it is sour.
The fire's not out yet. A friend of mine has water trucks on it, expecting to be there at least another three days. Apparently gas fires, especially of this size, are difficult to safely put out or control - regardless of whether it is sweet gas or h2s. FWIW, the people I know on the fire are not worrying about sour gas although they had to be trained and ticketed in order to attend.
Mmmm...I love the smell of sweet gas in the morning.
Interesting information on sour gas, I had no idea it was that lethal. And the media made the claim Wiebo Ludwig was arrested, the last time, for "public safety" reasons. The "highway of death" claimed several more lives that same week-end, public safety was not mentioned as a concern. If they are really concerned about safety, they'd do something about that highway, it's a killer.
As taxpayers, we paid to send 150 RCMP officers to search his property for 5 days. According to the media, there was no basis for the search. How bizarre is that! They are probably watching that neighbourhood via satellite 24/7 already. They come at any time of day or night and search his neighbours homes and property. The "real" danger is that the people of Tomslake, Hythe, etc. (all of us for that matter) can no longer expect a reasonable level of privacy in their own homes. They're all guilty by association, ( I thought that was a Charter Right). Encana made $30 Billion in 2008, they can afford a security firm, instead, the taxpayer is picking up the tab. Makes my blood boil.
Don't forget the Olympic connection to this. So why did we give almost $100 million to corporate police forces under the guise of a two week party?
Thanks Kropotkin for that heads up, a lot of displaced BC forestry workers have gone to work for them guarding their pipelines, and it seems we the tax payer are funding them so they can have a larger fascist private police force when the time comes....and tax payers are refusing to also give corporations their tax dollars.