drilling like crazy (Seminole, Redbird, May: environment, lawyer, work)

[redbird4848]

As a few others in my area can attest, "they" are drilling like crazy around here. (Hughes, Seminole, Okfuskee Counties-and I am sure many more counties.) But our area seems to be under a blitzkrieg!

I would like to start a thread on this subject becasue there is always "the untold stories". And I fear OK is going to play victim to these wells.

I live in south central OK. Around my place there are maybe 10 wells and it seems if one is driving down the state hwy *(ANY state hwy) new wells are always coming up!

Untold Story #1:
The well right across the road from us is now privately owned. Friday morning an 18 wheeler pulls up and sits on the road for a very long time, so I walked out and had a chat with the driver.

The driver said he was testing the oil before he drove in to the pasture. The driver also said he ain't buying a darn thing from this one, because the oil well was contaminated. As stated in a previous thread, a private citizen bought the well and all the fixins across the road. Which I never knew was possible.

Untold Story #2:

Our friend moved here from CA and bought 240 acres where he has cattle, horses, and goats. An oil company paid him $10/acre to go in and "test".

They are not an oil company, they are a private contractor who goes out and tests for possible sites. And they are from TX.

Anyway, the "tester company" left his gate open which allowed some livestock out and ran over another fence, downed a tree with a chainsaw thereby blocking his road into the pasture.
So, our friend called the oil company, because they PROMISED to shut the gates, etc. Well, the oil company stated they had no responsibility for the TX company's wrongdoing and further, the oil company filed a lawsuit against our friend -apparently, after a heated discussion. So now, it has already cost the private landowner a couple thousand bucks in lawyer fees.

Last Untold Story #3:

Our water is salty and smells like rotten eggs (sulpher) because around here when they close a well, they shoot salt water into it. The water is so bad, our neighbors had to have their plumbing completely redone after only 3 years in a brand new trailer. We have to replace our hot water heater every 18 months due to the water. We have had a horse, 2 cows, and a dog die of cancer.

Are these cancer relationships coincidental or causal? I have no idea. But surely someone, somewhere is also having a red flag come up.

[Synopsis]

There certainly is an ugly side to it for sure. I hope they don't ruin the countryside with all of the drilling. And as for your friend from California, I would be soooooo po'd if they did that with me I'd go after the company with both barrels blazing, legally of course. Down here in Texas the oil companies are accused of much the same; and they use up HUGE quantities of water in their drilling. All in all, I haven't seen a dime from the 100 acres they are supposedly drilling on that belongs to us (mineral rights). I think they are keeping the royalty checks for themselves. Greed.

[peggydavis]

They tear up the roads with their big heavy trucks, driven by maniacs. We went in and complained to the sheriff and the highway patrol about the speeding trucks.

A salt water disposal well on a neighbor's land had some accident, and the salt water ran onto our land. My husband called the owner of the well, and he wasn't going to do much about it. Then my husband called the Corporation Commission. They sent an inspector and a hydrologist out to test the water etc. and the operator has cleaned it up quite a bit, and got in trouble for not reporting the spill. They will have to show the Commission that they have repaired all the damage.

You have to watch them and complain when these things happen. Usually the bigger companies are easier to deal with. The salt in the wells has been a problem for years. I don't know if there is a cancer connection. Can you get on rural water, Redbird?

The problem to me is that the oil & gas industry provides so much revenue to the state that they don't regulate them the way they should. The revenues don't seem to find their way back to the areas damaged by all the drilling, and the disposal of all the drilling waste. I believe we should all complain a lot more.

[mkfarnam]

Call the EPA, or Erin Brocovich.

On a serious note:
Cantact the EPA.
http://lsgifund.com/SMU/text.pdf

This has 407 pages.
I got to page 11. It's very interesting, telling about abandon oil wells, causing water contaminations from leaking saltwater disposals follwed by laws suits.
And breakdowns of fresh water and water contaminated by oil drilling wastes.

[redbird4848]

If the chart below is true, why is there so much new drilling going on? Natural gas?

*From Energy Information Administration

Oklahoma Crude Oil Production (Thousand Barrels per Day)

Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
1981 392 438 429 397 419 430 377 443 452 425 438 429
1982 422 501 433 360 457 444 421 422 456 437 440 427
1983 436 449 443 456 432 445 414 451 435 429 464 363
1984 451 495 440 474 454 467 468 394 509 450 476 450

1985 446 438 449 459 458 428 440 449 429 460 439 453
1986 468 450 444 427 406 402 399 375 387 386 370 392
1987 353 380 390 389 357 373 368 361 366 375 360 348
1988 353 378 362 364 363 359 342 349 343 335 337 344
1989 346 313 338 337 329 323 318 317 318 319 315 289

1990 336 308 308 305 309 300 303 317 301 315 313 277
1991 297 309 307 310 303 297 297 293 286 290 285 282
1992 283 284 289 290 275 280 278 277 273 273 259 277
1993 265 265 282 273 261 272 267 262 263 261 259 248
1994 255 254 263 249 256 256 241 244 244 238 242 250

1995 239 252 245 242 239 242 233 239 232 240 243 232
1996 240 238 240 245 237 233 228 231 227 234 211 236
1997 226 231 240 229 237 233 232 224 224 223 219 221
1998 220 228 214 227 224 211 214 212 210 202 200 189
1999 195 202 202 200 196 192 187 189 189 183 194 192

2000 189 207 197 195 193 191 189 184 201 180 187 183
2001 186 190 201 198 190 194 182 179 183 186 183 182
2002 177 178 185 190 188 184 182 182 182 182 182 180
2003 188 169 185 185 172 177 177 179 178 179 178 180
2004 161 169 176 151 178 166 174 182 176 172 172 171

2005 164 173 177 172 172 168 170 169 173 172 169 165
2006 174 168 177 173 169 169 172 174 175 165 170 178
2007 170 173 170 169 171

[peggydavis]

I think they are mainly drilling for natural gas these days. They have some new technology that they use for extracting natural gas from shale.

[Goodpasture]

There are a lot of stripper wells that were capped back when oil was $13 a barrel. It just wasn't profitable to extract the oil. Today, at $80 a barrel and projections are for even higher prices, all those 10 and 15 barrel wells are profitable. You will see lots of those wells brought back on line and re-drilled and upgraded.

[Bobby H]

I'd like to think a lot of those old wells may be brought back on line, but many have been fully depleted.

What we're seeing through much of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico is steadily diminishing returns on fossil fuel drilling. New technology is helping to some degree, but we still have only so much oil left. Countries like Mexico are in even worse shape since they nationalized/socialized their oil industries and can't get in the investment capital needed to modernize. Mexico has only 9 years of oil left to drill in known reserves. Oil is their number 1 native economic industry (not counting what illegal aliens wire back to relatives). When oil runs dry in Mexico it will make for a pretty tense political situation. Count down to 2016.

[redbird4848]

This whole abandoned oil wells is a quagmire. I perused a few sites and it was mind-boggling.

Excerpt from article in New York Times, link posted below:

"The Federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates that there are about 1.2 million abandoned oil and gas wells nationwide and that some 200,000 of them may not be properly plugged. In Texas alone, officials calculate there are 40,000 to 50,000 abandoned wells that could pose pollution problems."

Below is the link. Read at your own risk.

Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells Become Pollution Portals - New York Times

[peggydavis]

It is pretty depressing to look at all the pollution problems. In our area especially around Seminole the boom days were in the 1920s, when the drillers did whatever they wanted. Even today the Corporation Commission seems to work for the oil companies rather than the citizens.