Alta. family fights for court costs after battle with oil company

By Jamie Komarnicki, Canwest News Service

CALGARY — Six years ago, the Ball Ranch near the small community of Bragg Creek, Alta., experienced its worst calving season in memory.

“We had weak calves, premature calves, sick calves, dead calves and we lost some cows, as well,” said Susan Graham, who runs the ranch with her husband, Craig, and her mother, Agnes Ball, 72.

“We had never experienced anything like that with our herd — ever.”

The decimated herd was the latest blow in a mounting battle pitting the small ranching family against one of the nation’s largest corporations.

It’s a fight some legal experts describe as the oil-and-gas industry playing “hardball.”

Recently, a Calgary judge ruled in the ranchers’ favour.

A Court of Queen’s Bench justice found in December that an Imperial Oil pipeline leak exposed a portion of the family’s cattle to hydrocarbon contamination.

The two parties were in court Thursday to argue over costs.

An Imperial Oil spokesman declined to comment on the case but said the company is proud of its relationship with local communities.

“We take great pride in our environmental record, particularly in maintaining positive relationships with our neighbours, which makes this case particularly troubling,” Pius Rolheiser said.

Nigel Bankes, chairman of natural resources law at the University of Calgary, suggested the judge’s ruling indicates the case could have been settled out of court “without putting the family to the cost, expense and emotions associated with proving a case in court.

“What that suggests is oil and gas companies will play hardball with landowners,” Bankes said.

The dispute began in the summer of 2002, when Agnes Ball returned from a weekend vacation to find a massive pit dug near a sour gas pipeline running through land where some of her cattle grazed. The leased land has been in the family since the 1940s, she said.

She said an Imperial employee later told her it was doing some work on a sour gas pipeline.

Cattle were grazing nearby, she said.

“I was furious,” Ball said Thursday.

The family’s concerns over contamination mounted.

When the calving season proved disastrous, they decided to take further action.

After repeatedly tangling with the company, Ball launched a lawsuit against Imperial Oil in 2004.

Family members insist that if they had known about the pipeline work and contaminated soil and water, they would have moved the cattle — and avoided the crushing calving season and damage to their herd that followed.

In December, the judge awarded the family nearly $70,000 in damages.

Their lawyer argued Thursday in court that the ranchers deserved as much as $150,000 for legal costs.

“If the David is ever intended or able to take on the Goliath, so to speak, costs do need to be acknowledged at the outcome of this decision,” said Spencer Bates outside of court.

Calgary Herald

Gas-lease offer ‘excites’ area group

After ’08 deal dies, Wyoming County Landowners expect Chesapeake Energy deal

“We knew that we wanted a company that could afford to buy 37,000 acres … that could not only buy us, but drill us,” Lines-Burgess [landowners' coalition secretary] said. “In order to do that, we knew we had to go for the cream of the crop.”

Cattle dead next to hydraulic fracturing job on Chesapeake natural gas well:

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From The Shreveport Times:

The ’stuff’ killed the cows, sheriff says
Prator questions whether drilling company has reported incident.

By Vickie Welborn •  June 25, 2009

That’s Caddo Sheriff Steve Prator’s assessment of what contributed to the deaths of 17 cows in late April near a natural gas drilling location south of Spring Ridge.

Until now, none of the state agencies involved in the ongoing inquiry into the incident has stated what caused the cattle to drop dead in Skipper Williams Jr.’s pasture on state Highway 169.

The deaths were reported at some point after a liquid leaked from the well, which was in the completion process, and pooled into a low area accessible to the cows. The substance later was determined to contain elevated chlorides, oil, grease and some organic compounds.

But no state agency took responsibility for testing the animals. Results from a necropsy performed by Williams’ private veterinarian are unavailable.

On Wednesday, Prator gathered representatives of his and Caddo District Attorney Charles Scott’s offices, the Caddo Commission, state police and the state Environmental Quality, Natural Resources and Agriculture and Forestry departments in one room to review all the reports connected to the incident.

“We went over for an hour exactly what everybody’s response was, and everybody’s response and cooperation was really good,” the sheriff said. “We responded to the scene well. When everyone found out about it we all worked together very well.

“We have determined — although no one agency except me will say this — by piecing everything together, there was a spill from the site that ran off of the site and that was ingested by the cows and that’s what caused the cows to die.”

State veterinarian Michael Barrington confirmed the cows’ deaths were neither natural nor caused by disease, a release from Prator’s office states.
. . . . .
Still undetermined is whether the spill was reported and, if so, whether it was reported in a timely manner. “We contend it should have been reported. And the timeliness of it we’re investigating,” Prator said.
. . . . .
State police, the sheriff’s office and Environmental Quality still are looking into the timeliness of the reporting. Findings of the sheriff’s office and state police will be turned over to Scott for review. Environmental Quality will move its report through its channels.

Environmental Quality was notified via its hotline when Chesapeake Energy learned of the dead cattle. And over the next 72 hours, the company worked with Schlumberger, the sheriff’s office and other agencies involved to investigate the incident, McCotter said.
. . . . .
“While Chesapeake, Schlumberger and others have conducted water and soil analysis, Chesapeake and Schlumberger have not had access to the cattle owners’ necropsy and toxicology reports and have, therefore, been unable to draw any conclusions as to the cause of the cattle deaths,” McCotter said.
. . . . .
“If at the time it happened proper notification had been made, there are chances cows would still be alive right now,” the sheriff said. “In this case, this was cows. How unfortunate. But what if it was children?”

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For complete story, see: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090625/NEWS01/906250326/0/L/The–stuff–killed-the-cows–sheriff-says

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For an important post on gas drilling’s effects on livestock and farmers, see also:
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/oil_and_gas_impacts_on_livesto.html

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http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20090429/NEWS01/904290368/1060

Click on links  for complete story and photo galleries

DEQ: ‘Nobody is owning up to it’

By Vickie Welborn • vwelborn@gannett.com • April 29, 2009

SPRING RIDGE – An unidentified substance that apparently flowed from a natural gas drilling site into a pasture is is being eyed as a potential cause of the deaths of 19 head of cattle Tuesday evening, according to the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality.

The contaminated area is … adjacent to the well that Chesapeake Energy Corp. is drilling on state Highway 169 near the corner of Keatchie-Marshall Road in south Caddo Parish. Tests to determine the nature of the milky white substance that had pooled into a low area could take a week to complete, Northwest Regional Director Otis Randle said today.

Authorities believe the cows ingested the liquid before dying. Tracks went to and from the puddles, a Caddo sheriff’s office spokeswoman said.

Chesapeake and its fracing contractor, Schlumberger, have denied knowledge of a chemical release on the site, Randle said. “Nobody is owning up to it.”

See also:

http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/03/video-cattle-drink-barnett-shale.html
http://www.unitedneighborsforoilandgasrights.org/
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/newscience/2007/2007-0410dahlgrenetal.html
http://splashdownpa.blogspot.com/2009/04/19-cows-die-near-chesapeake-energy-gas.html
http://txsharon.blogspot.com/2009/04/hydraulic-fracture-fluid-kills-cattle.html