Water Quality Update on Windsor Well/Clark, WY Incident

March 5, 2007
Letter to Windsor Energy

February 13, 2007
Amended Report / Appendix E

January 19, 2007
Notice of Violation

January 2, 2007
Cover Letter / Comments on the Investigation Report

 

November 17, 2006
Windsor Well Report of Investigation (18MB pdf)
 

September 14, 2006 Update
Line Creek Water Quality Report
 

September 12, 2006 Update

As of late on Monday, September 11, 2006, four groundwater monitoring wells have been installed.  A fifth is nearing completion.  Two wells ran into completion problems and were abandoned.  One well, the deep (250’ +/-) boring drilled adjacent to the gas well, had problems with cement entering the boring from well site operations and had to be abandoned.  This well will be attempted again once drilling operations are completed on the drill pad.  Three more monitoring wells, including two “nested” wells, are planned, and this phase of the drilling should be completed by September 14th

This investigation will result in a total of seven wells on site.  Three of the wells will be individual wells, one shallow and two deep.  The other four wells are nested wells, with two strings of casing set in one hole, completed at different depths.  The hole is plugged between the two intervals to prevent water from one zone migrating into the other zone.  The wells form a ring around the drilling location, and around the area where releases of drilling mud, condensate and vapors occurred, to monitor the presence of any contaminants and to measure if any contaminants are migrating away from the site.

The deep holes range from about 200 feet to about 350 feet deep.  The shallow wells are completed around 100 feet deep.  These depths were picked because the drilling found what is thought to be two separate water bearing zones.  The shallow zone ranges from 30 to up to 100 feet deep.  The deeper water zone was identified ranging from around 150 feet to over 200 feet deep.  Further testing and evaluation of the data will be necessary to positively identify these zones.

Once the wells are completed, they will be “developed” for water testing.  The development process cleans the sediment out of the well to allow for good quality water samples.  After waiting several days to allow the wells to stabilize, the wells will all be tested for the same chemicals that the private wells were.  This includes the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and the semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs).  Samples will also be collected to test for dissolved methane gas in the groundwater.  These are the primary contaminants that are thought to have the potential to impact the aquifers.

The results of the investigation, including all the sampling and testing protocols, and the laboratory results of groundwater and surface water sampling, should be presented in an investigation report by the end of October.  That report will be made available on this web site.


August 30, 2006 Update

As of August 30, 2006 investigations at the Clark Well Blow-Out Site have not indicated any significant water quality problems.

Area water wells have been tested for petroleum contamination and all results thus far have shown the water to be uncontaminated. Additional samples have been collected and are being analyzed at a commercial laboratory for additional constituents. A through and long term evaluation of the potential groundwater impacts of the blow-out will be done with the drilling of a series of monitoring wells around the site. The drilling of these wells is now underway and the Water Quality Division has a staff person on-site to monitor the drilling.

Surface water quality in Line Creek was evaluated within days after the blow-out and there was no visible evidence of contamination and monitoring of field parameters did not reveal any pollution of surface water. Additional samples for additional parameters have been collected and are being analyzed at a commercial laboratory. A long term surface water monitoring program is currently being developed.