nasws.freelancepartnership.com...
The Beginning
Water contamination... not a new subject or story to many people, but it's something that does not come out in the open very often. Sure there is the
movie based on real events, "Erin Brockovich", and many Canadians should remember the
"
Walkerton Tainted Water Scandal". This is a new story out of Canada.
Northern Alberta, Canada to be exact, in a little town called
Worsley. Population: approximately 50. This town's
economy relies heavily on the forestry industry and the oil/gas industry. Many
gas pipelines run through and around the town of Worsley.
Companies such as
Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) and
Baytex have
quite a large investment into the town and surrounding areas. There are also numerous natural gas processing plants in the area as well. In fact,
there was a tank fire there in 1997, but you'll be hard pressed to find the story about that on the internet.
Our story begins around April 2000, with one of the residents of Worsley, a former employee of these gas and oil companies,
Jim Reamsbottom. A father of four children, three of which
were born prior to 2000, he's a simple man who lived in a secluded area on the outskirts of town. His water is diverted from a local creek, to a
dugout for his personal use, since there are no treatment plants there. His property is between two separate gas processing plants approximately on
half mile away from his property on either side. One night in early 2000, Jim witnessed excessive flaring coming from both plants.
Flaring is the burning of natural gas that cannot be processed or sold. It disposes of the gas while
releasing emissions into the atmosphere. Gas processing plants remove the water, hydrogen sulphide, carbon dioxide and natural gas liquids from the
raw natural gas to produce the market-ready natural gas. This excessive flaring took place for two months straight at one of these plants and has
never stopped, even since they produced a sulfur acidification program and documents. Jim said the flares were large enough to read a book by at two
in the morning, even with the light from the flaring one half mile away.
Now, Jim worked for one of these plants in late 1995 through 1996. In his time working there, he witnessed a breach in the spill containment berm
surrounding the plant (see
video documentation here). The breach was in
the southeast corner of the processing plant property near the flare stack. For the time he was working there, and any time afterwards, the
breach was never repaired. The plant had been struck by lightning two
times prior to 2000, which caused a leak of contaminants.
Continue reading story here:
nasws.freelancepartnership.com...