by Wendy Dudley
We are "downwinders," meaning we live downwind from a sour gas well and pipeline. When the well—only half a mile from our home—was tested, it was flared, a process in which unwanted or uneconomical natural gas is burned, releasing chemical compounds, many of them toxic. The nighttime fireball lit up our barn, its glow devouring every shadow in the valley. It roared like a jet taking off within feet of our front door, its black smoke invisible against the night sky. These were the obvious inconveniences; what worried us more was what we couldn't see—the invisible cancer-causing hydrocarbons such as benzene and toluene, and the potentially fatal gases such as hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide, one of the main ingredients in acid rain. In recent years, efforts have been made to reduce flaring emissions, in response to public concern about its potential impact on people and livestock. But even without flaring, we sometimes feel as if we're living in a fool's paradise, aware that an accidental leak of hydrogen sulphide from the sour gas well or pipeline could kill us, as well as our pets and the nearby wildlife. Even short-term exposure to low levels of hydrogen sulphide can cause nausea, eye problems, and headaches, as well as respiratory and neurological damage.
Believe me, I did not choose to live this close to such a well. When we moved here, the hilltop across the road was aspen bush and pasture. It is still wooded, and cattle still graze there, but plunk in the middle of the grove is a sour gas well, built five years or so after we arrived. Yes, we did fight it, as did many other members of our community who live downhill from the well, where the heavy hydrogen sulphide tends to collect. But it was a classic David and Goliath battle, with landowners taking on an industry that greases the province's economic wheels—some people even refer to the rotten-egg stench of sour gas as the "smell of money." There's little landowners can do to stop wells, since our rights are limited to several inches of topsoil. The province owns the mineral rights, which it leases out to oil and gas companies.
Now, don't get me wrong. I drive a car. I heat my home with natural gas, and I love a hot bath. I'm not against drilling for fossil fuels. What I am against is having sour gas snuggled so close to residents, especially when no one knows the health impact of long-term exposure to low-level concentrations. For forty years, ranchers have complained that flaring has resulted in their own illnesses as well as dead and sick cattle, but only now is there a comprehensive study underway to determine if flaring compromises the
health of livestock and wildlife. Ironically, the study does not include the effects on people.
Sometimes Mom and I try to forget about the well, wanting to believe we're in no danger, but that's tough to do while walking our property with two-way radios strapped to our hips just in case we need to be reached because of a leak or blow-out. Of course, we are expected to evacuate without the animals, as if we should be grateful to escape even if it means returning home to find a barn and house full of sick or dead pets. Our animosity towards this project began the day surveyors arrived on our property, uninvited and unannounced. Seeing their orange vests through the trees, I went outside to find out who they were and why they were traipsing about without first coming to our door.
"Oh, we're tying in your place to where the sour gas well is going," said one of the young lads.
"The gas well? What gas well?" I asked.
"The one up there. On the hill."
That's how we discovered—from trespassers—that we would be the closest residents to the well. What followed was a year of letters, phone calls, community meetings, anger, frustration, and numbness. Labelled by some as "wingnuts," we ignored the verbal blows and forged on, taking our fight before the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB), the body that regulates the province's oil and gas industry. I knew we would lose, since the EUB rarely turns down a drilling application; its normal practice is to grant the permit, then attach a number of conditions that the company must meet to appease the concerned landowners. But I'll try just about anything once, and I wanted to experience first-hand this process, which was so much in the media because of Wiebo Ludwig and his fight with Big Oil near his home in northern Alberta. His incredible battle with a cast of colourful characters is well documented in Andrew Nikiforuk's Saboteurs, which won a Governor General's award for non-fiction in 2002. The book is dedicated to all "downwinders."
I wish I could say all my fears were unfounded, that the well and pipeline were installed and now operate without a whiff of rotten-egg smell or any threat to safety. But on one fine spring day, when the leaves were just beginning to green up and the pastures looked like a postcard from verdant Scotland, the pipeline, less than a year old, blew a leak and spewed hydrogen sulphide into the air. Roads were blocked as crews scrambled to repair the hole. Hours before we were notified of the leak, we smelled it, as the gas rolled along the valley and creek, just like I told the EUB it would. Again there were reports, phone calls, letters, anger, and mistrust. Throughout my opposition to this well and pipeline project, I was assured by the industry that such an accident would be rare—how I wish they had been right. The blow-out was the result of human error during pipeline construction. Since the accident, the community has again been assured that safety is a prime concern. But some days I don't feel safe because all the technology in the world—and oilpatch technology has improved by leaps will not prevent mistakes. To err is human, the saying goes, but sometimes those errors cost lives.
The EUB has noted we have the option of selling our home and moving, but I believe Mom and I have a responsibility to take care of that with which we have been blessed—land, beautiful land. Just like Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone With the Wind, I believe land is worth fighting for. So we will stay, to protect our valley and our home, in the hope it will not be lost to an ill wind.
Chapter Thirty
Donkey Time
The donkey's role as a burdened creature appears in various languages. The word easel, which bears the load of an art canvas, comes from the word "ezel," Dutch for donkey, and "esel" is German for donkey.
There's something about living with donkeys that makes you slow down a notch or two. Now, donkeys are quite capable of a fast gallop, but they prefer to saunter, tugging at thistle heads, grabbing dandelion blossoms, and chewing on anything that grows bark. Native to rocky deserts, they believe in siestas, standing beneath a broad canopy of leaves, a back leg cocked in repose, with their tails switching at flies and their large ears flapping to dissipate the heat. I'm sure just watching them lowers my blood pressure, as I too start moseying along, taking my sweet time to do a day's worth of chores.
Donkey siestas can come at any time, not just at midday when the sun is high and the winds are low. Most often they occur when I need Raven to move, pronto. Ask her to move out quickly and she's likely to put on the brakes. It's got to be her idea, not mine. And it's got to be when she's ready, even if that means adding several more hours to my day. After all, what's the rush? A donkey can live up to forty years, so there's plenty of time!
We call this languid pace "donkey time," and it's part of a donkey's charm. I tried to warn my friend Julie about this trait-that some people call stubbornness-but she laughed it off.
"Don't worry. I've never had an animal that I couldn't load. And I've loaded everything. Horses, bulls, you name it."
"But have you ever loaded a donkey?" I asked.
"No, but believe me, it won't be a problem."
"Hmmm," I grunted—quietly, so she couldn't hear.
I was moving Lucy and Raven back to Lyle's for about a month, while the oil company drilled its sour gas well near our home. We were downhill and downwind of the rig, and I didn't want to take any chances. If we were forced to evacuate because of a sour gas leak, I wanted to know they were safe and outside the plume.
Boy, were we in for a lot of fun. Neither Lucy nor Raven had ever been trailered. Lucy had last been moved when she was about two months old, in the back of a pickup truck with her mare mother at her side. Now six years old, she had nev
er been off the property since. Raven was also ranch-bound, having never strayed beyond the pastures where she was born five years earlier.
I had Julie park the trailer in the pasture for several weeks, just so the girls could get used to loading. Lucy was a star student, probably because the trailer was perfumed with the scent of horses, reminding her of her mother. Walking cautiously up to the open door, she stretched her head forward to get a good sniff, then stepped up and strolled to the back, never blinking at the echoing sounds her hooves made on the floor. From then on, I didn't bother haltering her. I would simply open the pasture gate and she'd march right up the lane, high-stepping it into the trailer. It was like having her very own playpen.
Raven, however, was an entirely different story. For over a week I begged her to take just one tiny step into the trailer, where I placed a mound of hay and a bucket of crunchies and carrots. Name the bribe and I tried it. After sniffing around the back door for about ten minutes, she would tentatively put one leg in, like a cat dabbing its toes in a pool of water. Then came the next front foot. It would be another fifteen minutes before her hind end followed, her neck stretching forward as she desperately tried to reach the hay in the front-end manger. I never forced her, only encouraged her. During those early lessons, I didn't want her to feel trapped. If she decided to back out, I let her. But still, Raven never relaxed, always keeping her hind hooves less than an inch inside the step-up. She was in, but barely.
"Hey, if she gets that far in, I'll get that door shut," Julie said, her confidence on moving day not convincing me in the least. She had no idea how fast a donkey can move backwards, like a rodeo bull blasting out of its chute. Lucy went in first, not even batting an eye when I shut the divider, confining her to the front end of the trailer. She looked up, hay already hanging out of her mouth, and then returned to filling her belly. Then it was Raven's turn. I tried to think positive, not hesitating for a moment as I walked her to the step-up. Up I went into the trailer, and on went her front brakes. "Come on, girl, it's 0K. Lucy's here and she likes it," I said, giving a slight tug on her halter. But Raven didn't care.
I motioned to Julie to let us be. I'd just sit inside the trailer, keep Raven's lead loose, and wait for her to decide it was safe to come on board. Slowly, her front hooves came in. And then, gingerly, she picked up each of her back hooves and planted them with the heels barely inside. What Julie didn't know is that Raven wasn't standing square, that her hind hooves were tucked under her haunches, leaving her rear end about an inch outside. Thinking this would be another moving job done in record time, Julie sprang to slam the door shut. The minute it touched Raven's rear end, she fired backwards, almost knocking the door off its heavy metal hinges. "Damn," said Julie. "We just about had her."
"The bad news," I said, "is that we just proved to her why she didn't want to come in here in the first place."
Now, you can call that being negative. Some may say that donkeys are so smart that Raven could read my mind, which is why four hours later we were still trying to get her loaded. But I prefer to think I just know my donkey. It could have rained for the next forty days and forty nights—donkeys hate rain—and Raven would have still stood outside, preferring a good soaking over one second spent inside that dark prison. We tried stringing ropes behind her rear end so she wouldn't back up; then we ran ropes from her halter through the front window of the trailer and down along the outside, trying to haul her in on a pulley. For the final touch, we waved a flag around her hind legs. But none of this worked. She just stood there, not moving a leg, a muscle, a tendon, or an eyelash.
Throwing up my arms, I started to laugh, noticing that Julie was no longer smiling.
"I guess this is what you might call a tough animal to load," I chuckled.
"No, it's not," Julie said. "Horses that are tough to load rear up, strike out, or kick. But she's just standing there. I don't know what you call this."
"Donkey time," I said. "It's called donkey time."
"You see, Julie, you're still thinking horses," I said. "But she's not a horse. She's a donkey. This is how donkeys refuse. They just lock up and stand there."
Julie didn't look impressed. "If I had Dena here to help me, I'd send you into the house. Then we'd get her loaded."
I didn't know who Dena was, but I was glad she wasn't around. Resorting to brute force never solves a problem, it just creates one. Sure, you may get the animal loaded that day, but good luck next time. What Raven needed was more groundwork, where I could encourage her to move forward, sideways, and backward without the stress of a deadline. Get control of her legs and movement, and much of the problem would be solved. It also didn't help that the trailer was parked on uneven ground, its rear end several inches higher than its front end. Every time Raven dug in her front end, her hooves would slip downhill, putting her in danger of sliding under the trailer. It was a sure recipe for a wreck. My poor Raven. I looked in her defiant eyes and knew further efforts would be useless.
"That's it," I said. "We're done. I know this lets her think she won, and I guess she did. But there are only so many daylight hours left, and I'd like to get her over to Lyle's before nightfall." If I left within the hour, we could walk the six miles to Lyle's by early evening.
"You're going to walk her over there?" Julie asked in disbelief.
"Yep," I said. "We'll be fine. Donkeys like walking. We'll take our time and besides, it's beautiful out. It'll be quite nice, actually."
"But what about the traffic?" Julie asked, almost in tears at the thought of us being sideswiped by some overzealous driver.
"Look," I said. "She's a donkey, not a flighty thoroughbred. She won't care about the noise. Believe me, I know her. We'll stick to the shoulders and she'll be just fine."
First, we drove Lucy over to Lyle's, where she was unloaded into a spacious paddock. As she trotted along the fenceline, I wondered if she remembered this as the place where she was born. I showed her the old bathtub tucked into the corner of the pasture, which I had filled with buckets of water the day before. Her ears perked at the sight of horses grazing in the next field, and then she too dropped her head to feed. It was time to get Raven.
Julie drove me back home, gave me her cell phone number, and demanded I call if we ran into any problems. She was headed to the local bar—I could almost hear the gossip beginning to bubble about a spoiled and stubborn donkey and her even more stubborn owner. Mom and I packed two water bottles and some donkey crunchies into a small daypack. With Raven haltered, we headed down the road, hugging the grassy shoulder so as not to bruise her hooves. As I knew she would, she ignored every passing vehicle, honking horn, and barking dog. The only thing she flicked her ears at were the roadside thistles, with their delicious purple flowers. Donkeys and mules will drag you across an acre-field to reach a thistle and wrap their tongues around the cactuslike thorns to yank off the tops. You can take the donkey out of the desert, but you can't take the desert out of the donkey!
When we passed the oil company security shack about a mile down the road, a guard emerged, waving his arms like an anxious child stepping off a school bus.
"Donkey, donkey!" he cried. "Oh, what a lovely donkey. I'm from Iran and we have donkeys in our villages. Let me go back inside and get some pizza," he said.
I looked over at Mom. "Do you think the pizza's for us or for the donkey?"
The guard returned, handing us a flat box with four slices of pizza. Still not sure for whom this offering was intended, I slipped the box inside my pack. "There's a park down the road," I said. "We'll stop there to eat."
The guard smiled, never taking his eyes off Raven. He gave her a final pat, then returned to the security shack after bidding us luck with our journey. After our snack stop (we ate the pizza, Raven devoured the rose bushes), we heard a truck slow down behind us. Creeping forward, the driver stopped to roll down his window.
"I don't believe it," he said. "I've heard people talk about `hauling ass,' but now I can say I have actuall
y seen such a thing." Happy with his own joke, he rolled up the window and drove away. To this day, I don't know who he was.
Finally, we arrived at Lyle's gate, greeted by Lucy, who was nickering and pacing the fenceline, glad to see three familiar faces. It had taken us three hours, but everyone was back together again.
Six weeks later, the trip was repeated in reverse. Lucy hitched a ride in the trailer and Raven ambled down the side of the road, Mom and I in tow. In donkey time, there are no ticking clocks. Things take as long as they take. It's really that simple.
Chapter Thirty-One
Purge the Spurge
What one person calls a flower, another calls a weed. Dandelions in sidewalks are weeds, but a field full of the yellow blooms is a glorious floral bouquet.
There's nothing like a stroll through an open field when the wind curls the orange and oatmeal-coloured grasses, the clouds skip across the sky, and the hawks hitch a ride on the afternoon thermals. On days like these, I like to practise what I call field meditation. I sit on a meadow hillside, my knees drawn up close to my chest, and my body slightly rocking as I keep time with the treetops wavering in the wind. If it's spring, I hike into the hills, where canary-yellow glacier lilies poke through aging snowdrifts, and purple crocuses unfold under a warming sun. The crocuses always remind me of gnomes, their petals opening like a little person stretching and yawning after a long winter's sleep. Come summer, the fields mature into impressionistic canvases of wildflowers blooming in dappled yellows, whites, violets, oranges, and purples. My favourite is the red paintbrush, whose crimson bracts burst like a scarlet sunset over a sea of green.