Beginning 11-17-07

This is a picture of my mother on the morning of 11-19-07. When she awoke, she was unable to open her left eye. She is sensitive to the pollutants in the air which we believe are associated with drilling activities. She's never experienced difficulty with eye congestion prior to 2003; but during this time and part 2004 while drilling activities were present in our area, her eyes gave her fits frequently.  When the Divide Creek drilling moratorium was imposed, her eyes were once again fine. (The moratorium applied to a two-mile radius) And they've been fine for the last eight weeks. This is, however, the second occurrence of this condition since the moratorium was lifted. She experienced it to a lesser degree the night previous (Saturday 11-17-07), but we wanted to wait and see if it recurred, wishing to rule out other factors such as an eye infection, a foreign object, etc. But, her eyes cleared once again Saturday afternoon, only to have the condition recur overnight Sunday (11-18-07).

We strongly suspected that resumed drilling activities in close proximity to our home would once again lead to eye problems, and they have. We are not sure what aspect of the drilling operations causes this effect, because we are not privy to them. The condition is temporary and it appears to be the mucosa of the eye attempting to rid the eye of an irritating pollutant. Even when the smoke from the California fires rolled through here a week or so ago, she experienced no problems. This reactive condition seems to be associated with some type of flaring operations and is relative to a constituent present in the gas. I'm sure that there is probably a name for this condition, but she doesn't have and cannot afford health insurance to determine it's technical name. We call it 'gunky-eye'.

This picture is crappy, but I wanted to grab it immediately. I'll try to get a better one next time - as there are sure to be more opportunities. [11-19-07] 

In the days before electronic monitors, miners deep beneath the earth relied on canaries to indicate the presence of deadly gas in a mine. They kept the canary in a cage and carried it with them as they tunneled through the darkness. Since a canary is so small, it was believed that by the time detrimental effects of gas had an effect on the bird, the much larger miners would be afforded sufficient time to vacate the mine. I had an old-time miner tell me that it was not uncommon to toss a jacket over the cage on occasion, when profits took precedence over matters of safety.

So how did the miners know when gas was present? The canary died. 

The nature of mining is dangerous. There are all manner of safety issues related to the pursuit of a resource held under pressure deep in the earth. A variety of surface conditions complicate matters. Unfortunately, technological advances have been slow in coming for an industry steeped in tradition and largely heedless of environmental impacts.

That is changing however. And I am very happy to report that new combustors are being voluntarily installed by EnCana for their operations in our area. But while these advances improve conditions, they do not make them safe. And landowners dwelling in close proximity suffer the effects of the energy industry.

Though it may burn cleaner once the refined product finds its way to a retail market, that gas is a "clean" energy is an urban myth carefully framed and fed to the public by way of lobbying and advertising efforts. It is in every way dirty energy. It is dirty to produce and it pollutes the environment in the course of its extraction, releasing a number of toxic components into the air - for many of which, including benzene, toluene, and many other related VOC compounds, the EPA has established no safe ambient threshold standards.

A community meeting co-sponsored by the Garfield County Energy Advisory Board, Garfield County Environmental Health, and Colorado Mountain College regarding air quality was held in Rifle on November 29, 2007. Although it was made clear that health effects are notoriously difficult to link to industrial operations, the CDPHE encouraged the public to report to their agency any health problems which are suspected to be related to energy development.

"Gunky Eye"
moderate / strong
11-17/18/19/-07

We reported the three-day 'gunky eye' 11-17/18/19-07 event to COGCC. They apparently interviewed both EnCana and Bill Barrett Corp. and inquired as to activities. No anomalies were reported, nor any completion, flowback nor flaring operations during this time period.  But what could be considered an anomaly? We suspect this reaction is caused by 'normal' operations - but we've no clue what they might be.  EnCana indicated to investigating authorities that they had been having trouble with the rig on the Schwartz site. The conclusion from the complaint process was that it may have been diesel fumes which caused the reaction. We will continue to track her reaction to drilling activities through Canary Watch and report them to the COGCC when they occur so that we may better define a pattern and isolate the offending cause.

This complaint is referenced as que Doc # 200122687

"Gunky Eye"
slight / moderate
12-12-07

The idea here is to at least amass a record of occurrence which may coincide with identifiable activities and yield at least some account of this issue for the benefit of researchers who we can only hope are seriously analyzing potential health effects related to this industry.

My mother had heard a loud sound several times last night (even asking me if I heard it, which I did, but we attributed it to wind loading against the house); and she asked if I smelled any odd odors, which I didn't, but she said almost possessed a "kind of sweet-but-not" kind of smell. We attributed this to a fleeting instance of some activity nearby and forgot about it. We often don't report small or fleeting odors as it would have us on the phone a great deal more than we already are and further stretch the limited resources of the COGCC field inspectors. None of us want to nag or overreact, so we typically only report significant, repetitive or lingering odors. Later, on the morning of the 12th, we learned from a neighbor that some operator further toward Silt had been conducting a massive flare overnight. The neighbor described the noise from his location as a 747 engine revving and noted the presence of a "mushroom could" over the flare flame which he said was probably 50 to 100 feet high.  Whether this event had anything to do with the gunky eye is anyone's guess, but I think it's common sense that such activity cannot be conducive to good health in any capacity. Luckily we were apparently some distance from this particular event, but I feel for those in nearer proximity.  It often happens that such flares with the black particulate (the only kind of flaring activity that CDPHE recognizes as outside exempted polluting activities) occur at night when the black junk isn't as visible. Good show mates.

CDPHE response:
On 12-17-07 I received a response to my inquiry. Though in a public air quality meeting the CDPHE expressed an interest in hearing from citizens who felt their health was being or had been affected by oil and gas operations, there is no program in place by which such information may be formally collected, recorded nor analyzed. I encouraged the CDPHE to develop such a program, for even if the information is unsubstantiated as being directly linked to oil and gas development, if it is at least truthful then a pattern of some kind will emerge, from which further refinement of the program can follow, leading eventually to useful supposition and, through further refinement, eventual focal points of interest if not verifiable conclusion. And that, of course, can serve as a useful indicator of potential health impacts. After all, it has been public clamor and congressional testimony which has evidently lead to the CDPHE expressing a recent interest in collecting such information in the first place. But making beneficial use of the information beyond simply placating a concerned public seems an important next step. The CDPHE employee acknowledged my general assessment and said that several calls had already been placed in an effort to learn of any in-place or intended program which can make qualitative use of such information. So in an effort to save his time and ours, I asked him to please let me know if he discovers a better or more appropriate reporting procedure for such information. He has said that he will contact me sometime after the holidays and let me know if he finds anything.

As for the flaring incident, according to a report by the COGCC, Bill Barrett Corporation noted that a compressor/gathering station and wells (some of which were purportedly EnCana's) experienced mechanical problems and were being "flowed back". While the report stated that the flares were neither scheduled nor planned, they occurred none the less on 12-12-07.

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