When it comes to oil and gas drilling in urban and suburban areas, the question is often ‘how close is too close?’
That’s been the major point of contention in Wyoming, where the state’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is currently considering a rule to increase the setback distance between oil and gas wells and houses from 350 to 500 feet. Many homeowners would like it to be even further. But as Wyoming Public Radio’s Stephanie Joyce reports for Inside Energy, distance is only one part of the issue.
SCRIPT:
(Fade up sound of drilling rig)
The sound of drilling is one Brad Brooks has become familiar with in the last six months. (Pop drilling sound then under) He lives in a subdivision east of Cheyenne and last fall, an oil company started drilling about a mile east of his house. He says that might seem like a long way--but sound travels on the prairie.
“Last night, about 10:30, I was woken up out of a dead sleep, and it was actually from the facility, a mile away, and I could hear them revving up and down a diesel engine.”
The noise is part of the reason Brooks was so upset by news he received in January -- EOG Resources has filed for permits to drill 26 wells, from four pads, much, much closer to his house -- just 840 feet away.
“So, if I can hear them at a mile, I know I’m going to hear them at 840 feet.”
EOG plans to cordon off the wells with a soil berm and stacks of hay bales. But Brooks doesn’t think that will do much -- not for the noise, and not for the piercing nighttime lights. He wants the rigs much further away from his house.
“As the leader of my family I feel helpless, I mean, what do I do?”
He may not be able to do much, but the oil and gas companies drilling near his house could do a lot. And less than 20 miles away, in Colorado, they have to. That state has strict noise control regulations for oil and gas. Chuck Myers lives in Weld County, in northern Colorado, and last fall he had a drilling rig parked just a couple of hundred feet in front of his house.
“I could have shot out their lights with a beebee gun, I mean they were that close.”
The rig had a big, four-story tall sound curtain around it -- Myers says that made all the difference…
“I mean you could hear it, I’m not going to sit here and tell you you couldn’t hear it. But it wasn’t any louder than these cars going by.”
Based on his experience with other nearby wells, Myers is adamant that good sound and light control is far more important than distance...
“Because even a quarter mile away, if you don’t have these sound barriers or light barriers, you’re still going to be miserable.”
Just down the road there’s a production facility -- a big battery of tanks and compressors that capture and store the oil until it’s trucked away.(bring up compressor ambi and then fade under) Don Behrens’ company designed and built the big, permanent sound barrier around the facility.
“This system is designed for about a 15 to 20 decibel drop.”
What does that sound like? Well, here’s what it sounds like inside the sound barrier (compressor noise). And just one foot outside it (outside compressor noise… fade under).
Behrens does a lot of the oil and gas noise control in Northern Colorado and around the country… in Louisiana and Texas and California… and his view is that noise is a relatively simple engineering problem.
“Sound is physics and you can fix it. This is not like air emissions. If you want to make something quiet, it can be done quietly.”
The question in Wyoming is whether it will be. The setback proposal the state is considering requires companies to submit plans to the state’s oil and gas supervisor detailing how they’re going to control noise and light. Supervisor Mark Watson says he’ll require barriers -- but unlike in Colorado, Wyoming will not mandate what decibel level will be allowed near homes. And Watson says it will be up to companies to decide what kind of soundproofing they use.
“Because this rule is so new, we haven’t even specified sound limits or anything like that. That’s probably something we’d have to deal with with the Health Department, who has more expertise in that.”
the Wyoming Department of Health says it has no plans to look into the issue. But There are plenty of existing studies about the adverse health effects of environmental noise - from lost sleep and poor school performance to physical effects like high blood pressure. And whether the state chooses to address the issue or not… it’s unlikely homeowners like Brad Brooks will suffer in silence.
SOQ
