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.
Mind your own business, Mr Morgan. Do you live in the neighbourhood? Methinks not. Did you attend the meeting on Saturday? Take care of your own neighbourhood and we’ll take care of ours. PS A lot of people who are against this well rely on the income gained from oil and gas. But there are too many variables (lack of emergency response plan, close to drinking water storage etc) and a flawed approval process that make us residents stand up for our community.
You are naive to compare rural and inner urban wells. They carry completely different risk profiles for their surrounding occupants. In an emergency scenario it is a lot easier to notify and evacuate a farmer of his/her property, yet you trying doing the same for a population of 20,000 and see how well that goes.
This goes beyond the perceived safety risks. A well should not be part of a high density population or community. Just because it’s ok for the Americans does that mean we should follow America with everything else they do? Just because they are lame enough to allow their suburbs to be overrun by pump jacks why should we. You almost make it sound like it would be cute to have a pump jack in your neighborhood. Lets put one in your front yard then.
As far as the prison and tip goes, this was already priced into real estate values as they were there before the houses.
Get your facts straight numpty.
The examples you gave of a 100 yr old well is just unreal.
hope to be living in the neighborhood for 15+ more years, and yes there are various things in the surroundings I & my wife were aware of when building the home.
Kaiser putting in for sweet well, that could end up being a sour well is not one of the things residents should expect if it wasn’t there before when it comes to something that could potentially be hazardous (no matter how remote the chance).
The ERCB will most likely approve the lease and if it ends up being sour – since we live more than the 100 meters away…. ERCB will most likely approve a sour well too! Unfortunately through this process – the public’s interest is not looked at, and a rural directive for the distance away is extremely flawed given the lack of exits & population density.