Paradise lost – family struggles for answers
As you pull up to Kristi and Pete Mogen's ranchette – 16 acres of all-natural paradise – you are greeted by a fenced front yard that is at least two-thirds garden. Vegetables, flowers and herbs of every imaginable type thrive here. They use no chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides.
Across the road is a corral with a dozen or so Dexter cattle, a special breed that is smaller than the average bovine and offers many advantages, including providing milk that helps ease their daughter's epileptic seizures.
Out back, several goats play in their pen. Next to that is the chicken coop where the family gathers fresh eggs on a daily basis. Playful dogs wander the yard, sniffing and stretching and scratching.
Scores of colorful fair ribbons line an entire wall of the living area inside. The Mogen girls have won these ribbons for everything from livestock showing to static displays.
The home's broad front porch, which doesn't get the amount of use it once did, offers a wide western vista. To the southwest, the Laramie Range forms a rugged backdrop, with Laramie Peak standing tall above the others.
There is a bluish-grey haze in the air, softening the view of the mountains. There's no telling how much of the haze is man-made and how much is naturally occurring.
This slice of idyllic agricultural life carved out of the arid sagebrush hills east of Douglas seems perfect for a family that values a natural lifestyle.
Why, then, is there a “for sale” sign out front? With so much time, effort and money invested in the property, why is the family desperate to pull up stakes and start over somewhere else?
The property has been on the market for 40 days now. There has been just one looker. No offers.
The trouble started in April 2012. A Chesapeake oil well nearby suffered a blowout, spewing toxic hydrocarbons and forcing the evacuation of residents. Most landowners settled with the company for the inconvenience they suffered. They were offered $800 cash per family. The Mogens and a few other neighbors would not accept that amount, because they did not know the extent of the damages.
Kristi says that Chesapeake has never come back to the table to deal with the lingering issues.
She said the family was assured by Chesapeake after the blowout last year that they would have no trouble selling the property. They were told that with all the oil and gas activity in the area, families would be moving here – someone from Texas who is accustomed to oil drilling nearby would jump at the opportunity to own this slice of paradise.
On the day of the blowout, Pete Mogen was home with the couple's two daughters Katie, then age 13, and Kylee, who was 11. The animals were going about their daily routines – lazing, grazing, clucking and playing. All suffered health issues.
Pete has been diagnosed with a condition that now requires him to take daily supplements to replace what should be a naturally occurring substance in his body. He and Kristi both showed abnormally low blood oxygen levels several days after the incident. The girls suffered headaches and chronic nosebleeds.
“Chesapeake told us we were only exposed to natural gas,” Kristi said. “I later found out that we were also exposed to vaporized drilling mud, which is full of chemicals. My husband was going downhill in May. By June, he was really sick – he could not move, he was exhausted. The girls and Pete were outside when the blowout happened. I was in town and most of the neighbors were away at work. They got the exposure immediately, they got more exposure than most out here and they were sick immediately.”
She says their property was contaminated.
“I have soil tests to prove that,” she said. “It's not at Wyoming DEQ's cleanup levels. The thing is, we don't use pesticides, we don't use fertilizers, we don't use chemicals. Anything on my property is a 'no' to me. And it hurts my business as a chemical-free farm. Basically, we were told if we wanted it cleaned up, we would have to do it ourselves.”
In addition to the natural gas that spewed for three days, Kristi says the vaporized drilling mud and whatever other substances were involved permeated the air.
“Drilling muds are the same as fracking fluids and we inhaled that, our cows inhaled that,” she said. “Our calves were born early this year. One had a tumor that we had to have removed. At this year's state fair, we had pens of three, one pen for last year's calves and one for this year’s calves. The judge said this year's calves were growing unevenly. He was not impressed with this year's calves. Well, these were all fetuses shortly after the blowout and those chemicals affect fetuses the most.”
All these things, Kristi says, are evidence that what occurred here that April day last year was serious. Serious enough to warrant more than a slap on the wrist to Chesapeake, she says. The company was not fined.
In May, after the blowout, the flares began.
“These were so loud, we felt like we were living on the DIA tarmac,” she said. “The rolling black smoke coming from the flares had unburnt hydrocarbons”
Things have returned to normal here, at least as normal as they can be with the ongoing drilling nearby. Residents still complain of noisy flaring, light pollution and foul odors.
“We have this wonderful front porch that we're hardly ever able to enjoy any more,” Kristi said.
This year, the garden thrives once again. Things seem normal on the surface. Except for that “for sale” sign.
“We can't stay,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
But how can they move on without being able to sell their slice of paradise?
If that were not worry enough for the family, the answers they seek – and have been seeking for the last year-and-a-half – are slow coming. She said she feels like she is being stonewalled.
She has written to Gov. Matt Mead, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. She's requested records of activity and records of findings. She's received few responses.
A year ago, she and some neighbors attended a WOGCC meeting to air their concerns about the oil and gas activity around their homes. She said she felt like they were dismissed like a bunch of unruly high schoolers.
They were there to express their opinions about flaring extensions that Chesapeake was seeking. They suddenly were told that the company had withdrawn its requests and the board would not hear their concerns that day.
The family has been in Wyoming for 13 years, in the Douglas area for nine.
“We moved here from the Baaken Field area in northeast Montana,” she said. “We've lived around oil and gas. We grew up around it. Pete has worked in the oil field. It's not like we're ignorant about the industry. Before this experience, our biggest concerns about the oil boom were the social impacts on our daughters.”
Kristi said that WOGCC Supervisor Grant Black has agreed to a community meeting in her neighborhood to take place later this month.
“A lot of my neighbors don't agree with me, but just as many do agree with me,” she said.
To say that the experience has left her frustrated would be a gross understatement. Her family means the world to her. She vows to fight on, despite being labeled a crackpot by some.
She has become somewhat of an activist and went to Washington, D.C., earlier this year with Powder River Basin Resource Council to visit with lawmakers and call attention to the issues concerning the oil and gas industry and the problems she has encountered as a landowner near the activity.
She said that Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) was the only Wyoming representative who seemed sympathetic.
Kristi Mogen is being a pain in the butt. She works to document incidents in and around her neighborhood – smoke, haze, dust, odors, accidents, spills, heavier than usual flaring, and the like – and is quick to provide photographic evidence.
She stays on top of the Wyoming DEQ air quality monitor readings from the portable system the DEQ set up last December a few miles or so west of her property. She talks to scientists. She calls agency heads. She writes letters and sends emails.
One letter out of many finally paid off. WOGCC recently issued a drilling permit for another well near the Mogens, but told Chesapeake that no waste pit would be allowed on the site due to its proximity to county roads.
”Every time I talk to somebody, I document it,” she said.
At this time, she says she has documented flaring violations and exemptions, several chemical exposures, including heavy metals, spacing exemptions, and not reporting spills and accidents to the appropriate agencies in a timely manner.
“My community should be able to enjoy peace of home, without noise disturbance, odors or pollution,” Kristi said. “I also expect the state to apply all the rules, laws, regulations and executive orders to everyone without exemption. The State of Wyoming needs to enforce these things in order to protect the wildlife – a huge part of Wyoming living – the air, water, soil and people who live here. Our community, or any community, should not have to suffer or incur losses at the profit of the oil and gas industry.”
Kristi has joined Powder River Basin Resource Council to work to bring protections to people living or working near horizontal drilling. She wants to protect their property, their health and their property values.
She wants answers that she feels are long overdue.
But, most of all, Kristi Mogen wants her old life back. She knows it will never be the same for her family here.
