Oil and Gas Well Drilling: "Very Loud, Very Dirty"

This informative half hour video tour shows the industrial scope of a drilling site. The narrator says "It's very loud, very dirty" and "there are lots of ways to get hurt out here". When he's under the platform to show the Blow Out Preventer, or BOP, he says that's a dangerous place to be. 


 


Under the yellow link below, is a video of the Windsor frack water blowout that happened in February 2013. It spewed for 30 hours before it was finally shut off. The Windsor rig used by PDC Energy is not nearly as solid and professional looking as the one shown in the video tour, and perhaps we should be concerned about that! 

• 80,000 gallons of frack water spilled at oil well east of Fort Collins Full story: http://tinyurl.com/lwepzlv

If we cannot stop wells from being drilled, we should at least expect that it is done with top notch equipment to make it as safe as possible. It's usually the smaller operators like Mineral Resources in Greeley that use small, mobile rigs. 

See this one at Island Grove in the summer of 2013 

Greeley surrounded by 20,000 oil and gas wells.

GREELEY Colo. — This is a town running on oil. From dawn till dusk, trucks carrying men and machinery rumble away for the oil and gas fields. About 425 wells are tucked within the city limits;..and that number is expected to grow to 1,600 in coming years. A vacant patch of grass near graduate student housing on the city's east side bears this sign: “Future Drilling Site.”

“These wells are going to be here for a long time,” said Wendy Highby, a librarian at the University of Northern Colorado who joined a group of residents to oppose the project . “They’re what we’re leaving to our children.”
 Read NY Times article: Supporting Oil and Gas, but Resisting Encroachment'

On May, 29, 2013, 100 barrels of brine water spilled to the ground, just 160 feet from the river. One barrel is 42 gallons. A valve on the tank had failed. 

See:  Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission  database ( May, 29, 2013 ).

Diesel smoke is spewed in big puffs 120 times an hour;
2880 times in 24 hours, for 5 to 8 days per well.
22 wells are planned at Island Grove