The water is receding which should allow well owners to get into impacted wells. This is important because wells under water have combusters (the things used to burn off waste gases) that are under water and thus “out” thus allowing un-combusted waste gases to escape into the atmosphere as raw natural gas. Raw natural gas is poisonous, odorless, colorless and seeks out low areas, in this case it will follow the course of the river.

The combuster is the big black pipe in the left of the picture.

The other problem is escape of oil products. Below is a picture of a condensate tank that should be hooked by a pipe to the wellhead above.

It is no longer connected and can leak into the Platte river where it’s floating right now. Oh and here we see also how close these wells are to semi- residential areas, those are homes behind the tank, thankfully evacuated.

The third major problem is storing chemicals in flood zones and residential areas.

Notice the water level line on the building. The far side of the building (still in water) is where the dock doors (loading and unloading) are located. Right behind this building is where the well and tank in the previous pictures are located. These pictures were taken on Saturday in Evans in the 4600 block of Brantner Rd. And you can use any of them you wish.

Here is a shot of the wells across the street (11th Ave.) from Island Grove park, it’s right next to the Poudre river. The problem here is the water from the river has flooded the secondary containment berm.

This was last night. The building in back is the Swift JBS Beef processing plant on 8th Ave.

Carl Erickson
Greeley CO