The scene is familiar.
A group of frustrated farmers in a rural hall recite tales of water wells contaminated with oil, plumes of sour gas drifting through the farmyard and calves dying.
The stories have been the same for years.
But Andrew Nikiforuk, a reporter and author from Calgary, wants to know why farmers keep their stories locked away in the country.
“The people you need to get this message out to is urban folks,” Nikiforuk told a recent meeting of the Alberta Federation of Surface Rights.
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“You get this message out and they’d be appalled. They would be natural allies if they knew about these issues.”
Nikiforuk said few urban reporters or people who live in cities know about the frustrations associated with gas well development.
Most city people don’t know about the ongoing conflict between landowners and oil and gas companies, but they have heard of Wiebo Ludwig, the northern Alberta man recently released from jail for oil patch vandalism.
In his book Saboteur, Nikiforuk used the conflict between Ludwig and the Alberta Energy Company to highlight the kinds of conflict that often occur in rural Alberta.
“We’ve got a problem in this pro-vince we don’t want to talk about.”
Nikiforuk writes that at first Ludwig went through the proper channels at Alberta’s Environmental Utilities Board to oppose the drilling of wells around his farm, but soon realized the EUB’s job is not to protect landowners but to make sure companies follow a basic set of rules.
The EUB rarely rejects oil or gas projects, Nikiforuk said.
When Ludwig’s family started to get sick, he blamed it on nearby gas wells. That’s when the vandalism began, with Ludwig dropping crude oil on office carpets of the EUB and AEC offices.
“It was stunning to see they didn’t get the message at this point,” Nikiforuk said.
“This whole thing started as a very common dispute thousands of landowners have experienced before.”
But Nikiforuk said the dispute went too far when bombs went off at sour gas wells and a joy-riding teenager was shot to death on Ludwig’s Trickle Creek farm.
Even though Ludwig increased the profile of problems that landowners have with oil and gas companies, Nikiforuk doesn’t believe anything has changed.
“The government has written off the rural people and their health and their livestock. Why the hell is this going on and why are we allowing it?”
Nikiforuk urged the federation to branch out and make allies with other groups in the province.
He said landowners need their own provincial board with the authority to grant damages and compensation if oil and gas companies harm landowners.
He also said the EUB must form environmental forensic teams to look at landowner concerns and not just rubber stamp oil and gas proposals.
David Blum of Provost said the poor agricultural economy is making it tougher to stand up to oil and gas development.
“If an oil company waved a $500 bill in front of most farmers, 90 percent would take it,” said Blum, who lives in the centre of Alberta’s largest oil developments.
Nikiforuk said the surface rights federation’s job isn’t to stop development, but to educate landowners about how to protect themselves.
He recognized farmers’ financial pressures and said one of the reasons Ludwig was able to tell the gas companies to drill elsewhere was because he made his money from a dry walling business, not farming.
“Most people in the Peace River district are absolutely dependent on the oil industry. I didn’t meet anyone who likes flaring.”
Wild Rose Agricultural Producers president Neil Wagstaff said landmen for large oil and gas companies have recently told him it’s never been easier to get farmers to sign lease agreements, because they need the money.
