More questions than answers came out of a community meeting in Galeton on Thursday evening, as area residents heard directly from leaders for the first time since an unintentional release from a nearby oil and gas site last week.
About 6 p.m. Sunday, an equipment failure led to the release of some water and oil and gas at the facility south of Weld County Road 74 known as the Bishop Well site, according to the Chevron Corporation.
Chevron, an energy company specializing in oil and gas operations, oversees or manages the well site. Company workers were not at the site at the time of the incident, but Chevron representatives in Galeton on Thursday could not answer a community member’s question about who was working when the failure happened.
Chevron’s Marcus Parham said the incident started as a “well control event,” but he did not define the event. Parham said it would be speculation to say what happened and an investigation team will come in to determine what went wrong.
About 200 people gathered at Galeton Fire Station #2 on Colo. 392 for a presentation and question-and-answer session. The evening was led by the unified incident team comprised of representatives from Galeton Fire Protection District, Weld County and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in addition to Chevron.
A recorded telephone line is available for the most up to date information at 970-400-4210, according to Weld County.
Representatives from Colorado Parks and Wildlife, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission were also on hand Thursday night to answer questions.
While some residents peppered the incident team with questions and appeared frustrated in search of answers, others came away from the evening pledging support for oil and gas and Chevron.
One woman, who declined to give her name, said it’s too early for the full picture of what happened. The well was capped, or sealed, Thursday afternoon for the first time since Sunday to prevent further release of substances. Galeton Fire Protection District Chief Russ Kane said later in the day the control process at the well had begun and was expected to last for the next 24 hours.
“We’re worried, but it’s early yet,” she said. “I think they had this meeting to inform us. We’re looking for long-term effects, and it’s so early in the process.”
Two men, who also declined to give their names, said they felt more information should have been available to the community at the meeting, almost five days since the release.
One of the men asked about the impact on soil, crops and livestock. He also wanted to know about the potential of a release at another well. There are a lot of oil and gas sites in the vicinity of the Bishop site.
“Who is accountable?” he said. “Who are they holding accountable? Does it take four days to mobilize a staff to get here? These guys don’t have a clue.”
How much water and oil and gas was released is also not yet known, according to Chevron employees who are part of the unified incident command team.
Chevron’s Parham and George Tappin said the company will determine at a later time how much water and oil and gas was released based on estimates using “the science behind what’s available from information available.” The company will also use aerial footage to estimate the size of the release.
Tappin said portable air monitoring stations are strategically placed around the one-half mile exclusion zone — which is the area around the well where any potential exposure to hazardous substances is highest, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Those portable machines are continuously monitoring air quality.
Some of those machines are measuring what’s called LEL, or lower explosive limits. LEL is the lowest concentration of a combustible gas or vapor in the air that can ignite.
Other stations at the well are measuring air quality, looking for volatile organic compounds and benzene. Volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, are emitted as gas from certain solids or liquids, according to the EPA. A variety of chemicals are in VOCs, and these can have short- and long-term adverse health effects.
“All the instrumentation that we have in place, those levels have remained below actionable levels,” Tappin said.
He added the one-half mile perimeter around the well site was put in place as a conservative method of control following the release.
“It wasn’t due to any information we have,” Tappin added. “Its an immediate default protection position.”
Twelve Galeton residents were evacuated from their homes because of the release. Most of the evacuated residents are staying at hotels paid for by Chevron.
Galeton Elementary School in the Eaton School District is located outside of the perimeter. The school is scheduled to be closed for a fifth consecutive day, out of an abundance of caution, said Kane, the fire chief.
“When we didn’t have well control, that well could change at any minute,” Kane said of the evacuations and school closure. “The well could’ve turned a different way. We were fortunate with the weather and the well that we never received any readings above action levels.”
Kane also said conversations had started about allowing residents to return their homes, adding “we are not ready to do that immediately.” Galeton Elementary may also reopen as soon as Monday, Kane added.
EPA on-scene coordinator Taylor Bowker said there was a known discharge into Willow Creek and the Greeley No. 2 Canal from the well site. Bowker added “a more robust assessment of environmental impacts” from the well site release will be done in the future.
Charles Collins lives on Weld County Road 72 about one-half mile northwest of the well site. He was recommended for evacuation, but it was not required. He chose to remain home.
One consideration in his decision was his cattle. The herd would’ve endured some stress by moving, relocating and then moving back. Collins didn’t think the situation merited the move.
“I’m not worried about the animals because nothing landed on them,” Collins said of any oil residue from the release of the well. “It must have went to the south.”
Doug and Lori Selby live one-half mile south of the site in one direction and 1 mile to the west in another direction. The Selbys did not evacuate and did not receive a notice they should leave. They are concerned with the truck traffic in and out of the well area, and the damage to the roads.
Lori Selby said she heard a “whooshing sound” Sunday evening coming from the site and saw a plume of smoke into the air.
“You could hear it,” Doug Selby said. “It sounds like a volcano.”
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