The eco-fearmongering is hitting fever pitch as it has been noticed that a sweet oil well is proposed to be drilled a quarter-mile from some residences in NW Calgary.
People are acting as if this sort of well is new or dangerous when it simply is neither of those things. Some are howling about air quality. Well, the local sewage manholes are emitting more foul and dangerous gas than a sweet oil well will. There are literally thousands of wells much closer to households in rural Alberta and people are not dropping like flies.
You bought a house on the edge of the city with a prison and a garbage dump for neighbors and you are complaining about a sweet oil well nearby? I bet most of the residents there derive their incomes from the energy industry. I am sure that complaints of the smells from neighboring livestock come in on a regular basis too.
To put things in perspective here are a couple shots of other wells.
The first picture is from Bradford PA and the well is literally over 100 years old. It is novel sitting in the drive though lineup while watching an active well operate 6 feet from you. May I suggest that the product from the McDonalds is more potentially harmful than the oil well. I spent a few months in Bradford a couple years ago. Besides that well and the Zippo factory, there is little else of note. Would you take that away from them?
The second picture is from Los Angeles where there are hundreds of local hazards that eclipse that posed by some wells in residential areas.
NIMBY syndrome never fails to rear it’s ugly head. Anti-energy people are whipping the residents of Northwest Calgary into a frenzy over what really is an utter non-issue. There are much more important things for growing communities to be focused on than completely safe oil wells being drilled in neighboring fields.
Oh and for those spreading fear because there is a slim chance that 1 pmm of hydrogen sulfide may possibly kinda sorta be present in the oil occasionally, keep in mind that our own flatulence carries as much H2S as this well could in the very unlikely event that it carries any. Yes, you are as dangerous as the Royal Oak oil well when you emit beer-farts.
