美国国家公共电台 NPR 'They're Everywhere': Oil, Gas Wells Dot Developments, Raising Potential Dangers

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Colorado is reviewing its oil and gas operations after a house blew up last month, killing¹ two people. A pipe from a nearby oil and gas well had been abandoned but not properly sealed. The tragedy is prompting many questions about the regulation of wells. Dan Boyce with the public media collaboration² Inside Energy reports.

DAN BOYCE, BYLINE³: Julia Chapman's just pulled into the garage of her home in Firestone, Colo., just north of Denver.

JULIA CHAPMAN: Girls, can you grab some groceries, please?

BOYCE: Two young daughters.

CHAPMAN: Twin boys that are almost 2.

BOYCE: Oldest daughter Gillian is 10. And on the afternoon of April 17, she and her sister were right here on their front porch. They'd just gotten permission to go play at their friend Jaelynn's house.

GILLIAN: We were standing⁴ right there. We turned around, and the house exploded.

BOYCE: Jaelynn's house just across the street.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED JOURNALIST: The remains⁵ of two people have been pulled from the rubble⁶ of this house explosion in Firestone.

GILLIAN: The house just split open. You could see the upstairs.

CHAPMAN: The insulation⁷ was still floating in the air down the street.

BOYCE: It turns out Jaelynn was not home at the time, but her dad, Mark Martinez, and uncle, Joey Irwin, were in the basement, and they were killed in the blast. Julia Chapman says when they bought their house, neighboring oil and gas sites just weren't something they thought about.

CHAPMAN: We just sort of trusted that the city and the oil and gas knew what they were doing.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

MATT LEPORE: What is taking place here is highly unusual.

BOYCE: That's Colorado's chief oil and gas regulator Matt Lepore speaking at a recent press conference. The Martinez home was built 178 feet from an existing dormant⁸ well. Anadarko Petroleum⁹ switched it back on in January of this year. And when they did, unrefined gas started flowing into an old 1-inch plastic pipe called a flow line. It was supposed to be sealed but it wasn't. Lepore says a new state directive orders inspections¹⁰ of these flow lines within the month if they're inside a thousand feet of an occupied building.

(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)

LEPORE: To seek to absolutely minimize any possibility of this happening again.

BOYCE: In Colorado and many other places, suburbs are expanding into areas that used to be oil and gas fields.

SHANE DAVIS: So if you know what to look for, there's one right there too to your left.

BOYCE: I'm driving around Firestone with anti-oil and gas activist¹¹ Shane Davis. He runs a blog called fractivist.org.

DAVIS: They're everywhere.

BOYCE: He's pointing out just how close some of these houses are to wells and khaki-colored oil and gas tanks.

DAVIS: All of this should be banned in residential¹² areas, period. There's no reason for this in residential areas other than profit.

BOYCE: Colorado is one of only two states that actually regulates the flow lines coming out of these wells. Still, a comprehensive map showing where these lines are does not exist. And while new oil wells must be drilled at least 500 feet from homes, there is no state regulation for how far new homes must be built from existing oil wells.

GREGORY MIEDEMA: That dramatic of a setback¹³ is really, really hard to stomach.

BOYCE: Gregory Miedema heads the Home Builders Association of Northern Colorado. He says contractors¹⁴ are willing to consider new regulations on this, but he warns it could drive up prices.

MIEDEMA: What they want to make sure is that they don't price the public out of a new home.

BOYCE: And there is still a lot of demand for new homes here. In fact, right behind the site of the Martinez home explosion, workers are busy with the construction of a new apartment complex with nearly 300 units. For NPR News, I'm Dan Boyce, in Firestone, Colo.

(SOUNDBITE OF J.S.T.A.R.S. SONG "TRIPPING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC")

SHAPIRO: The story comes to us from Inside Energy, a public media collaboration focused on America's energy issues.

1 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

2 collaboration   

n.合作，协作；勾结

参考例句：

• The two companies are working in close collaboration each other.这两家公司密切合作。
• He was shot for collaboration with the enemy.他因通敌而被枪毙了。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

5 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

6 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

7 insulation   

n.隔离；绝缘；隔热

参考例句：

• Please examine the insulation of the electric wires in my house.请检查一下我屋子里电线的绝缘情况。
• It is always difficult to assure good insulation between the electric leads.要保证两个电触头之间有良好的绝缘总是很困难的。

8 dormant   

adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的

参考例句：

• Many animals are in a dormant state during winter.在冬天许多动物都处于睡眠状态。
• This dormant volcano suddenly fired up.这座休眠火山突然爆发了。

9 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

10 inspections   

n.检查( inspection的名词复数 )；检验；视察；检阅

参考例句：

• Regular inspections are carried out at the prison. 经常有人来视察这座监狱。
• Government inspections ensure a high degree of uniformity in the standard of service. 政府检查确保了在服务标准方面的高度一致。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

12 residential   

adj.提供住宿的；居住的；住宅的

参考例句：

• The mayor inspected the residential section of the city.市长视察了该市的住宅区。
• The residential blocks were integrated with the rest of the college.住宿区与学院其他部分结合在了一起。

13 setback   

n.退步，挫折，挫败

参考例句：

• Since that time there has never been any setback in his career.从那时起他在事业上一直没有遇到周折。
• She views every minor setback as a disaster.她把每个较小的挫折都看成重大灾难。

14 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》