FOX VALLEY, Sask. – A Saskatchewan rancher says gas field activity has contaminated his dugouts and poisoned his cattle.
Perry Anton, who ranches on the edge of the Great Sand Hills in southwestern Saskatchewan, said some of his cattle became sick and died after drinking from a dugout on crown land near a natural gas compressing station.
Several studies have found the water is toxic, but Anton and Ocelot Energy, which owned the station until recently, disagree on the cause.
Anton said the company’s practices are to blame. Ocelot said chemicals found in the water occur there naturally.
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“It’s a unique and very odd and puzzling situation,” said Ocelot production engineering manager Doreen Rempel. “We’ve worked with ranchers and farmers and had shallow gas operations for 25 years now. Nothing like this has occurred to this point.”
Anton’s problems began in January 1992, four years after the Freefight Compressor Station was built. He said he noticed the water in the dugout about 400 metres south of the station was getting darker.
“One night I found a cow lying by the dugout,” he said. “She was dizzy and couldn’t get up.”
Some of the cows nearby had diarrhea, ranging in color from light yellow to almost black, he said. He began to herd them home, about three kilometres away.
Vomit black water
“Some would stop and vomit black water,” Anton said. “I’d never seen anything like that before.”
The first cow to exhibit symptoms died the next day. Others he brought home suffered from diarrhea and colds.
“Eventually they would lay down and waste away, even though they were eating,” he said. “It looked like the cow had AIDS.”
Nine cattle died initially. Five more died later. However, autopsies carried out several months later found only routine “garden variety” causes of death, said Eugene Janzen of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine.
Anton hired Wally Hamm of darWall Consultants in Saskatoon to test the water in early 1993. Hamm said high sulfur levels in the water were unnatural and had to come from an industrial source. He told Anton not to use the dugouts or graze his cattle on the land around it because of toxicity.
In 1994, Ocelot hired Udo Weyer of WDA Consultants in Calgary to analyze water samples from three dugouts.
“The water is extremely toxic,” Weyer said in an interview. “We don’t know why, exactly.”
Anton suspects the area was contaminated when Ocelot dumped waste fluids into unlined mud pits, and the fluid seeped underground into shallow aquifers. Early studies done for Ocelot showed seepage was occurring, even before Anton’s cattle began having problems.
The WDA samples were tested by six labs, which found hydrocarbons in the water, including methane, ethane, ethylene, propane, propylene, butylene, iso butane, normal butane, cyclopentane, normal pentane, helium, hydrogen, argon, dimethyldisulphide (DMDS) and others.
Weyer said the black water suggests toxicity from an unknown sulfur compound, possibly a volatile organic sulfur.
“Several indicators point to gas field activities as the source of the sulfur compound and the cause of the associated toxicity in dugout 8-27, and possibly in the other dugouts,” said his report.
Rempel said Ocelot believes the high sulfur level is an unusual natural occurrence.
Weyer said DMDS is found naturally in small amounts, but the levels found in the dugouts were much higher than he would expect. Hamm drew the same conclusion.
“Five milligrams per litre is an amount which I have never seen anywhere in nature, by a factor of 1,000,” Weyer said. “That would indicate that it’s probably coming from an industrial source. But I’m not saying Ocelot or Perry put it there.”
Anton, who once worked at the compressor station, said DMDS is a chemical used only in the oil patch to remove sulfur from well casings. Ocelot has denied using it.
“Our people have certainly been in touch with the company and when they say they’ve never used it … we believe them, I guess,” said Saskatchewan environment minister Lorne Scott.
The provincial department has not conducted its own study, and last spring approved an expansion of Ocelot’s activities in the area.
At Ocelot, Rempel said Weyer’s $250,000 report contained inconclusive information.
“I agree that there was at one point a problem with his cattle, definitely, and we could not determine the exact source of the problem,” she said. “We would like to determine it and resolve it.”
Ocelot president Glenn Gradeen preferred to use the word “speculative” to describe the report.
“The raw data was fine … the conclusions were leaps of faith,” he said.
Meanwhile, Anton said he continues to have problems with dry cows and deformed calves.
Weyer said more studies need to be done, but that is not his decision.
Problems continue
“Perry has good reason to be concerned,” he said. “He’s not a cuckoo.”
Hamm said finding the exact problem sulfur compound is not as important as acknowledging the toxicity. He said sulfur compounds are the most common in Saskatchewan and sulfur chemistry is very complex.
“All the facts are there,” he said of the toxic water. “The government should sit down and say there is a problem.”
In a letter to Anton, provincial environmental protection director Bob Ruggles said his department and energy and mines reviewed the studies and “have concluded that it is unlikely that problems you have experienced with your dugout and with the health of your herd are related to Ocelot’s operations at its compressor site, KCl (potassium chloride) mud pit, or old mud pit near the dugout.”
He said the department would pay for an independent health study of Anton’s herd.
But Anton said an independent study of the water is needed.
Environment minister Scott said departmental officials would like to resolve the matter but haven’t heard from Anton.
“I certainly wish that we could get to the bottom of it,” Scott said. “If there is a problem, and it sounds as though there is, we would like Mr. Anton to contact us.”
