Public Information Meeting: Sour Gas and Your Community

Date: Tuesday, August 26th
Time: 7:30 pm
Place: Cowley Hall, Cowley

Subject: Impacts of sour gas (H2S) development on people, cattle, water and land values.

Forum: Panel Presentations followed by Q&A

Expert Panelists:

Don Bester: cow-calf operator and chairman of the Butte Action Committee: Impact on water.

Gordon Cartwright, Mac Blades and/or Ken Stiles : Pekisko Landowners Association: Impact on land and the fescue economy.

Janet Main : Main Ranch: Impact on ranching life.

Dr. Chris Jenson : DVM: Impact of flaring on cattle health.

Dr. David Swann : public health specialist: Impact on down winders from acute and chronic exposures.

Sponsored by Local Landowners in the Porcupine Hills and Willow Valley.

For more information contact: John /Jillian Lawson : 403-628-2271 or Sid Marty :403-628-2331

Sour Gas Backgrounder
1.) Sour gas is “dirty gas” that contains hydrogen sulfide, a cyanide-like poison that kills in small amounts. Alberta is the world’s leading producer of dirty gas: about 30% of its natural gas is sour.

2.) Since the 1960s sour gas has killed more than 35 oil and gas workers in Alberta and British Columbia; injured thousands of cattle and displaced approximately one hundred landowners. (National Post Business Magazine, 2002)

3.) Due to their lethal contents sour gas wells and pipelines freeze development on neighboring property by 100 metres or more. Farmers and ranchers with sour gas wells on their land have documented a 50% decrease in land values. The government offers no compensation for this expropriation.

4.) Sour gas flares have been associated with still births in down wind cattle (Waldner, 1999). Cattle exposed to sulfur dioxide, a byproduct of flared H2S, develop respiratory problems, tissue inflammation and immune problems. (Western Producer, June 17, 2002)

5.) A 2002 technical review of H2S by Alberta Health and Wellness found that H2S is a “broad-spectrum toxicant that can elicit numerous psychological and biological responses in the 0 to 20 ppm range.” Human data on short-term effects is “limited” and “for many organ systems, reliable information on effects following short-term exposure to H2S is almost completely lacking.”

6.) The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers notes that “an increasing number of residents in areas adjacent to sour oil and gas producing or processing operations are actively opposing sour gas developments.” In Adrossan more 1500 citizens successfully stopped a proposal for six sour gas wells last spring.

In eastern Calgary scores of citizens are challenging a similar proposal in an area inhabited by 250,000 people. And in Maycroft more than 100 ranchers are fighting a 30 % sour well proposed by Polaris Resources Ltd, a company with no assets in Alberta and no employees. El Paso is also proposing a sour gas well on a sacred Blackfoot burial ground in Brocket. It, too, is being contested.

Recent Reviews
"Calgary author Andrew Nikiforuk does a masterful job of taking the reader, step-by-crucial step, through an extremely complex story. He builds a real mystery thriller out of a slice of someone's life--a difficult, acrimonious someone, but someone nevertheless." Wayne Skene, Edmonton Journal, October 28, 2001

The saga of Wiebo Ludwig desperately required a comprephensive, book-length examination, and Calgary journalist Andrew Nikiforuk has performed the task splendidly....Nikiforuk is a committed envrionmentalist, but he keeps his opinions in check. While he certainly has sympathy for Ludwig's cause, he presents a "just-the-facts-ma'am" approach. The facts will outrage most readers.
Ian Pearson, The Globe and Mail, October 27/2001
Saboteurs is the most important non-fiction book released in Canada this year and the powerful story of a terrible tragedy that should never have happened.
Charles Mandel, Calgary Herald October 27/2001
A family of true believers seeks God and renewal in the wilderness and unknowingly settles in northern Alberta’s rich and poisonous gas fields. When their paradise is invaded by Big Oil, they suspect that industrial pollution is the cause of miscarriages and a serious threat to the family’s health. Their charismatic leader, Wiebo Ludwig, launches a series of civil and legal appeals. These meet a solid wall of industry and government indifference.

A group of mysterious and skilful saboteurs emerges in the bush. Using guerrilla texts and even the Bible as guides, they attack dozens of gas wells, oil roads, company vehicles and gas pipelines, illustrating the vulnerability and indefensibility of North America’s energy infrastructure as well as the psychological power of terrorism. The violence escalates to death threats and shootings. Ludwig, a forceful and God-fearing cleric, declares war on industry and describes the sabotage terrorism as self-defense. He sympathizes with the saboteurs, he says, but repeatedly claims that neither he nor his family are the authors.

Despite millions of dollars’ worth of damage, the oil and gas companies merely beef up security and admit to nothing. They spend a fortune combating the symptoms (industrial sabotage) but not their source: industrial pollution. The RCMP, underfunded and understaffed, conclude that this kind of domestic terrorism simply can’t happen in Canada, dismissing an officer who calls for a full investigation.

Only when the bombs go off do the authorities belatedly react with a botched million-dollar investigation. After the shooting death of a 16-year-old girl on Ludwig's farm, his frightened religious community and the terrified citizens of Hythe and Beaverlodge threaten to engage in tribal warfare. To this day the root of the conflict, toxic industrial pollution in rural Alberta, remains largely unaddressed.

Saboteurs is a chilling tale of a fundamentalist crusade that ends in tragedy. It’s an unsparing look at the way insensitive authorities exacerbate problems they are meant to resolve. It’s chilling evidence that Canada’s national police force is unprepared for domestic terrorism. And it’s a remarkable work of investigative reporting that stands as an allegory for our time.

About the Author:
Andrew Nikiforuk’s work as a journalist has earned him four National Magazine Awards, the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, and top honours from the Association of Canadian Journalists. One of his four previous books--School’s Out: The Catastrophe in Public Education and What Parents Can Do About It --was a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the Gordon Montador Award for writing on issues of key social interest. He lives in Calgary.

Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War Against Big Oil, By Andrew Nikiforuk
1-55199-053-9 / 283pp / $34.99
Send Andrew your comments, questions or critiques to: feedback@andrewnikiforuk.com
 
 
Read the exclusive excerpt in the October 1st issue of Canadian Business.
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