Barnett Shale Rig Tour
by John MacFarlaneEditor’s Note: This is a guest post by Ryan Place resident (and RPIA board member) John MacFarlane, who took the opportunity to tour a Chesapeake drilling rig and was kind enough to write up his experience for us.
As an executive board member on the Ryan Place Improvement Association, I’ve been very involved in the 8th Avenue Chesapeake gas well issue. As most people on the Near Southside know, and the rest of the city for that matter, Chesapeake has been very reactive to gas well controversy. However, after finding out that their original city council variance hearing for the 8th Avenue site would be heavily attended and likely voted down, they began to be very proactive. After holding neighborhood informational meetings at Berkeley and Ryan Place, they offered to take residents on a gas rig tour. I attended a tour held on Saturday, August 16th. Much to my dismay, only 3 other residents, of both Berkeley and Ryan Place, attended the tour. The preceding Wednesday, two or three other residents took the tour. This is a brief summary of the tour with my personal commentary.
Sharla Davenport, Public Relations Specialist, picked us up at Fiesta on 8th Avenue in a 15-passenger van. The tour took place at a site on 820 and Randol Mill.
The area is primarily open space, with a few commercial and retail structures. There are some upscale, gated subdivisions approximately 0.5 to 1 mile to the west on Randol Mill.
Upon arrival at the site, an unarmed security guard in plain clothes greeted us. Ms. Davenport told him who she was and that we were on a tour. Working in the environmental field, I rarely visit construction or industrial sites and was immediately impressed with the size and height of the drill rig.
We then met with the site manager in his trailer. He explained the details of drilling over the next 20 minutes. He spoke about the chemicals they use while drilling, about the safety of the drill site, and the logistics of drilling. He explained that they use a polymer lubricant in the well casing to force the water and sand during fraccing. He explained that they are harmless and do not breach the casing and leach into the groundwater.
After leaving his office, we looked at the links of casing. They are about 30 feet long and used during drilling. Once the casing or drill is down at the surface, the next drill link will be placed on the drill. There are many links because they must drill over 2 miles. Once drilling is complete, the fraccing process begins. Water and sand are forced down the casing and into the shale where it is broken up. The gas will flow from the broken up shale and up the casing, most of the time over 2 miles in length, to be collected at the surface. We then walked up and onto the rig platform. We went in the “cockpit” where the directional driller sits. He uses a joystick to direct the drill. He keeps a sharp eye on the many gauges on the dashboard.
After leaving the cockpit, we were shown where the “tailings” (material made up of broken rock from the drilling process) are placed in water tanks and cooled down. This material, or mud, is cooled and placed in a large tank to settle. Now, this story is very interesting. 
This “mud” is loaded on to trucks and hauled to large farms and ranches in Oklahoma and other nearby states. A lease is signed with the landowner to spread this “mud” out over several acres. Once every couple of months, the “mud” is turned over to speed the drying process. After about a year, the “mud” is dry and tilled into the ground by the farmer. The site manager says that it’s “better than fertilizer” because it comes from the ground and being put back into the ground. He stated that the farmers swear that their crops are healthier and more robust.
We then walked over to the generators and generator building. The generators are what cause most of the noise from drill sites. Although I have not visited a site during the fraccing process. We then walked over to the 16 foot sound wall. We walked to the other side of the “blanket” wall. 
The noise was more than halved. I’m not saying it was quiet, but the noise was much less than inside. That concluded our tour. After leaving the site, we drove about 1,500 to 2,000 feet from the site to listen to the noise. I could still hear the drone of the generators. The site manager made sure to point out that they had already completed drilling one well and that it had been capped awaiting for the 2nd well to be completed. The capped well is about 20 ft by 20 ft in size.
My final thoughts: I was impressed by the 100 ft plus rig over the drilling site and all the mechanical and drilling equipment. However, I took this tour with the 8th Avenue site in mind. In my opinion, even after being on a drilling site, it does not belong in an area in the near Southside or any other densely residential area. The toll on local roads hauling water off the site, the large amounts of water taken from our streams and rivers, the web of underground pipelines, 24 hour generators, and the even the remote possibility of an accident, makes this process not fit for high density residential areas.
Tags: Barnett Shale, gas drilling rig, john macfarlane
2 Comments, Comments or Pings
Don Young
Thanks for the guided tour, John. Like Virgil in Dante’s Inferno, you take us to a place no mortal should ever want to tread. You repeat what children easily comprehend but so many adults choose to overlook: Gas drilling has no place in a city of half a million plus. Further, my friends in the country say they don’t want it, either. It’s dirty, dangerous and destructive to children, families, the old, our parks, rivers, trees, prairies, wildlife and other living things. Everything that is healthy and good, things that we treasure and that enrich our lives is negatively impacted by gas drilling. Only self serving individuals and organizations seeking wealth, instant gratification or the illusion of something for nothing would accept such a trade-off.
We have been fooled. Gas drilling is only the latest in a long line of corporate interests who reinvent the meaning of words and principles to suit their profit-taking schemes and keep us dumb. Now they seek to redefine words like, “park”, “safety”, “good” and “win”.
But to me, the most amazing thing about how gas drilling has taken root in our town is how people so readily ignore one of the most basic, common-sense rules of life: Don’t trust anyone who offers you something for nothing. Or, as David Gilmour said, “you never get anything worth getting from an asshole.” Aesop didn’t say it better.
As time grows desperately short in Dirty Ol’ Town,, those who continue to justify urban gas drilling have become intolerable and must be called out, embarrassed and exposed. Repeatedly. Those who claim ignorance or “need the money” have lost all credibility and become intolerable.
Sep 9th, 2008
John Peter Smith
John:
Thanks for the rather well-balanced report. I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t let your opinions influence your honest observations.
Frankly I was pleasantly surprised at your report of how much sound those sound blankets contain. I had always assumed that they were more for show than effectiveness.
Since you went with the 8th Avenue site in mind, I’m curious. Any thoughts on how the level of noise outside the sound blankets would compare to traffic along 8th? How about the trains going by? I drive by there pretty regularly and when I do I can’t help but wonder if the neighbors would even hear the well over the traffic and trains.
Sep 9th, 2008
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