Friday, October 19, 2001
Ludwig gets sympathy in his sour well battle

Charles Mandel
Calgary Herald
Friday, October 19, 2001

Wiebo Ludwig took on the oil companies and the boards.

The Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) is described as "vague and unresponsive" and "ineffective and biased" in a new book on Wiebo Ludwig scheduled for release next week.

In Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil, (Macfarlane, Walker & Ross, $34.99) Calgary journalist Andrew Nikiforuk portrays the oil and gas regulator's policies and those of its predecessor, the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), as favourable to energy companies and not to landowners.
Saboteurs recounts the battle between Ludwig, the preacher who oversaw a small, self-sufficient Christian community of family and friends near Peace River, against several energy companies as they developed sour gas wells on Ludwig's property.

The book shows industrial terrorism in the region rose sharply after Ludwig's unsuccessful appeals to get the ERCB to intervene on his behalf. The vandalism ultimately cost Calgary's Alberta Energy Company about $10 million.
Bob Curran, a spokesman with the EUB, said he wasn't prepared to comment until he'd read the book. However, an EUB news release dated May 10, 2000, contends that in 1998, the Ludwigs refused to participate in a public meeting that included EUB staff.

"Direct offers of assistance by the EUB and industry to conduct tests have met with outright rejection,'' the release stated. "Given the lack of objective evidence and the unwillingness to participate in processes that would help gather such evidence, the October 1998 request for a public inquiry for reasons of human and animal health concerns cannot be supported."

The EUB also said "there is no objective evidence that the deleterious effects identified by the applicants are caused by the lawful activities of energy companies operating in the Hythe area."

In 2000, Ludwig was sentenced to 28 months in jail on a number of charges, including mischief by destroying property and possession of an explosive substance. Ludwig is expected to be released from prison in November.
The book portrays Ludwig, his family and friends as fighting an uncaring bureaucracy that includes the provincial government, an array of energy companies and the EUB.

Ludwig objected to the sour gas wells on health grounds; hydrogen sulphide, a by-product of sour gas, can kill people or cause a wide range of health problems, Nikiforuk contends. It has been blamed for causing spontaneous abortions in cattle and people.

"But both industry and government argue that no conclusive body of scientific evidence supports the claim that small doses of (hydrogen sulphide) are harmful,'' writes Nikiforuk, a former Herald journalist. "Big Oil seems to be today where Big Tobacco was 15 years ago: deny, deflect, dismiss."

Nikiforuk details several studies that were either dismissed, ignored or changed by the Alberta government and the EUB to the disgruntlement of the scientists. David Bates, described as a "leading researcher on air pollution,'' testified before one EUB hearing, saying it the effects of ill health from gas leaks at Shell Caroline matched what the scientific community knew about hydrocarbon exposure.

The EUB dismissed Bates' testimony and approved an expansion to the facility.

Nikiforuk describes the ERCB as "largely financed by industry itself'' and as a "sizable bureaucracy staffed by engineers or farms boys who had worked in the oil patch."

In Saboteurs, Nikiforuk shows Ludwig brought his concerns to the ERCB over surveying by Calgary's Ranchmen's Resources Ltd. for a sour gas well on his Trickle Creek property as far back as 1990.

"An ERCB employee assured him that Ranchmen's couldn't proceed or get a licence without a hearing. Trickle Creek was 'flagged' by the regulator and then forgotten,'' Nikiforuk writes.

A subsequent ERCB hearing in 1990 resulted in a four-page report dismissing Ludwig's concerns and recommending completion and testing proceed.

In January 1991, after the well had been installed, a gas leak spewed 59 cubic metres of gas into the air. That spring 20 of 55 lambs at Trickle Creek were born dead. The same spring, Mamie Ludwig, Wiebo's wife, suffered a miscarriage in her first trimester. She'd previously had 11 healthy pregnancies and no previous miscarriages.
In 1996, AEC began preparing for seismic tests near Trickle Creek. Ludwig again approached the EUB for help. Ludwig again failed to receive any assistance. Shortly after, the first industrial sabotages occurred.

"The EUB acknowledged that in 1998, daily flaring within a 10-kilometre radius of Trickle Creek released enough gas to heat more than 5,000 homes,'' Nikiforuk writes.

Nikiforuk, a four-time national magazine award-winner, interviewed more than 100 people for the book.
© Copyright 2001 Calgary Herald

Copyright © 2001 CanWest Interactive, a division of CanWest Global Communications Corp. All rights reserved.
Optimized for browser versions 4.0 and higher.