Sootypaws Journal

Blondie and Grey are fully weaned and are eating up a storm, probably twice as much each day as the big guys Bobo and Kitty Boy. Their area of exploration is slowly encompassing the whole house and they are interacting well with the big guys. Kitty Boy is utterly entranced with the idea of new playmates and he can't wait for them to get bigger (we have to watch him so that things don't get too rough). He's taken to bringing toys up from the addition to show the kittens and to let them play with and he's been giving demonstrations on how to play best with a ball.

Blondie and Grey love our book piles and exploring the book shelves (they can only reach the lowest shelves for now). They are junior book goats!



More soon!

I've just added two new pages to the website devoted to Grey and Blondie, two kittens abandoned by a feral mother, and being hand-raised by us. We have lots ore photos and when there's time we'll be adding more pages. The first page devoted to the kittens is in the Cats section of the website.



The kittens started eating solid food today! More soon.

We have at least two varieties of plants that don't depend on chlorophyll in our woods. These are called mycotrophic plants (because they are symbiotic with a type of fungus) and the Forest Service has a section on their wildflower website about them. The plants we have are Indian Pipe (monotropa uniflora) and Cancer Root (conopholis americana). Cancer Root is almost finished flowering and Indian Pipe is just beginning.

		This is a large cluster of Indian Pipe that has just emerged so there are specks of soil on the normally all-white plants. Another name for this is Corpse Plant.
		Cancer Root pops up in late spring, generally in clusters, standing about 6 inches tall. The yellowish "berries" make this plant easy to identify.
		The plant is short-lived and begins to turn brown and wither. We've seen plants torn up that have been munched by something so at least one critter finds them edible.

More soon!

West Virginia's Office of Oil and Gas is in the process of revising and updating its 1992 Erosion and Sediment Control Field Manual which covers Best Management Practices (BMPs) for access road and well site construction. The revision is much needed and we hope industry follows it better than it did the old manual.

The BMPs are necessary for important reasons. The EPA gave the oil and gas industry an exemption from Clean Water Act rules covering stormwater discharges. Why the industry needs this exemption when every other construction industry (except mining) is covered by these regulations is beyond us. The EPA was forced to abandon part of this exemption in a strongly worded Ninth Circuit Court's decision against the EPA. The EPA has a page devoted to the NPDES requirements of oil and gas.

These regulations are important because the issue isn't just sediment poisoning streams and lakes, but also because of contaminated runoff from well sites. What types of contamination? Heavy metals, organics and other chemicals used in drilling and fracturing or produced by the equipment on the site. This is why bulk chemical storage on well sites during drilling and fracturing is a huge issue. There should be no possibility of chemicals contacting the ground or water during storage or by accidental spills. ( Read more... )

Terry Gross on NPR's Fresh Air had extensive interviews with Josh Fox, the film maker of Gasland, a documentary to be shown on HBO (June 21st), and with Abrahm Lustgarten, a reporter for ProPublica, on June 10th. We highly recommend both interviews and both can be heard on the NPR website.

Josh Fox described the making of Gasland and what he saw as he investigated the impacts of natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. This page on the NPR website has a link to hear the interview plus there are clips from the documentary and background information.

The interview with Abrahm Lustgarten was equally revealing. His articles for ProPublica have focused on fracturing and problems with industry disclosure about the chemicals being used and their effects on drinking water. In this Fresh Air interview, Lustgarten talks about the oil and gas industry's exemption from the requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act, partially based on industry's promise not to use diesel fuel for fracturing any more. Of course, diesel has been used for fracturing since the 2005 exemption, along with a host of other toxic chemicals. This page on the NPR website has a link to hear the interview plus there's background information.

Grey and Blondie are well past their third week birthday and the changes since we saw them first on May 21st are amazing. Their eyes are open and ears are erect. They are walking (though a bit unsteadily still) and they've begun bathing themselves after a session with the bottle. We've begun the process of weaning them but Grey and Blondie are so excited they tend to skate across the saucer of food more than eat it.

We've seen the third kitten; the momma cat had moved it to under a workbench shelf in the shop. We checked again today and the kitten is no longer there and we think it's been moved to the woods.

When I get a chance I'll create a page on our website with kitten photos in the Cats section. Until then, here's a short movie of Grey made on May 30th (2.2 MB).

The past two weeks have been filled with cat events for us. Kitty Boy disappeared for 48 hours and we thought we'd lost him until he appeared again, as if by magic. The intervening time was filled with fraught searches in the woods surrounding our home and beyond. Bobo and we really missed the little guy and think he was adventuring only to be caught short by one of the numerous rain storms we were having at that time.

Then, a day after Kitty Boy's return, we discovered that a feral cat had given birth to kittens under the house addition's overhang. The cat had been seen from time to time and wasn't one that Bobo and Kitty Boy liked. We'd assumed it was a traveling male.

There were three kittens in a pile Friday evening and the mom had run off. We put out some food for her by the kittens and left them alone for the night. In the morning we saw that one kitten was some distance from the other two and looked slightly bigger. We decided to move the other two and had a shock when Molly picked them up. They were attached by their umbilical cords. Normally after giving birth the mother cat removes the sac surrounding the kitten and cuts the cord with her teeth. In this case there was at least one sack still attached and the umbilical cord for the other kitten wrapped around it. About 2 inches at most separated the kittens.

Molly called our vet and they explained what we needed to do. Tie off the cords and cut above the ties for reach kitten. So we were on our hands and knees under the house addition performing minor surgery and then we moved the two kittens to their litter mate. We left more food nearby and left the kittens alone to see if the mother would come back.

The mother cat did come back, not touch her food, and remove the healthy kitten to another, as yet unknown, spot. The two kittens were heartbroken and calling. Molly went into town to get kitty formula and a bottle, with the hope that by the time she got back the mother cat would have returned and taken at least one of the kittens.

Late Saturday afternoon the mother cat hadn't returned, so we brought the two kittens inside and began to feed them. It'd been cool outside and their little bodies were cold to the touch and they barely moved.

Feeding kittens is something we've never done and just that aspect has been an adventure. We moved from a baby bottle type affair for small animals to a much better Catac bottle which has better nipples and allows much better control. Feedings occur two hours after the last feeding has finished, day and night, and we've been lucky to accomplish anything else the past week.

The kittens seem to be thriving and are into the second week of hand feeding. Survival in instances like this is chancy and we've not given them names, calling them Gray and Blondie because of their coloration.

		This is Gray napping after a feeding. This photo was taken on May 26th. (We began feeding the kittens on May 22nd. I write we, but Molly has been the primary feeder with me assisting.)
		And this is Blondie, again napping after a feeding. This photograph was taken on May 29th.

Bobo and Kitty Boy have been very good in the circumstances. They've had to stay in so they won't drive the mother cat off, though we have no idea how the third kitten is doing or where it might be. The mother cat does appear for food but won't let anyone be within sight of her. We've had glimpses and that's all.

Memorial Day we'll be changing to a new feeding schedule with more time between feedings. And it won't be quite as necessary from now on to keep the house at 85 degrees. We'll keep everyone posted on what's happening.

"A fatal oil tank explosion last week was caused by a man opening a hatch on the tank while smoking a cigarette . . ." (April 2010 -- Weleetka, OK)

Condensate storage tanks at gas well sites pose a wide range of hazards to the environment and persons. The crude petroleum and brine is toxic and unless secondary containment (which is required by state and federal law) is in place, a leak can have profound negative impacts. Gas well sites we looked at that had tanks had inadequate or lacking containment 56% of the time last year. This is a serious problem.

Vapors that vent from these tanks can contain high concentrations of benzene, toluene and xylenes. Benzene is a carcinogen and all the volatile organic compounds create other significant health problems for those living or working near a tank.

These vapors are highly explosive and ignition can take place because of a spark or flame from a variety of sources -- lightning, maintenance, static during fluid transfer, and kids.

The explosion cited at the beginning of this post occurred one day after the U.S. Chemical Safety Board released a safety video called "No Place to Hang Out" about the dangers of well sites and storage tanks to young people. The CSB was able to document 24 similar explosions between 1983 and 2009 at oil and gas well sites involving teenagers and young adults under 25. Forty-two persons were killed; some of the explosions killed more than one like the 2003 explosion in Texas that killed 4 teenagers.

What the CSB has found parallels what we've seen. Trap doors are often not locked and in the case of plastic tanks often not lockable. Well sites are an attractive nuisance and those that are on (what we call) the Long Road in Putnam County show signs of this -- beer cans, graffiti and campfires.

We believe all trapdoors should be locked, access to sites should be restricted and signage about the hazards needs to be in place. We know of no regulation for this in West Virginia and of no guidance from the state or state's industry organizations.

We've been having a great spring here and the woods and environs are teeming with life. We were afraid because there were no hickory nuts or acorns last fall that we wouldn't see any ground squirrels but they're back, much to Bobo's and Kitty Boy's delight. As is a wren family with a nest above one of the windows on the house addition.

		I know this isn't a critter; it's a early blooming wild orchid. I'm shooting down the spire and the delicate flowers aren't really clearly evident in this photo. The orchid's single dead leaf is visible at the bottom of the spire. This orchid (I don't know the variety yet) is in the Asbury woods.
		Here's a photo of one of the flowers. The colors are delicate and I'm afraid these photos were taken past the peak bloom.
		Here's a luna moth resting on a walnut tree. This was taken down at my mom's in the hollow.
		Again in the hollow, here's a snapping turtle in Harmon's Creek. The most I've ever seen at one time is three -- two in the pond at my mom's and one in the creek nearby. The three "keels" along the shell's back on this turtle can be seen in the photo.
		After a very busy day keeping up with the ground squirrels, birds, bugs, Bobo and everyone else, Kitty Boy comes in for dinner and then collapses. He'll be up again at dawn, ready to go the new day.

More soon!

In mid-April, the company that operates the well halfway between our home and the hard road spent 5 days working on the road and well, completely upgrading the road.

The well access road had been a pain in the neck because of poor maintenance and abuse for years. It was so bad that the company had to use a bulldozer to pull a vac truck to the well site each winter to empty the condensate storage tank. They'd done this in February of 2008 and we'd made countless calls to the local office to have it fixed. Nothing was done and then the company told us they planned to drill a well on our property, promising us a graveled road.

They did fix the road somewhat in September 2008 and then used a bulldozer to haul a vac truck in and out in February 2009. We have pictures on our website of what the road looked like afterwards. We had email addresses this time, though again it took ages for the road to be fixed (July 2009).

So it was a complete surprise to have work in earnest begin on the road this April. We didn't know what was happening and were dumbfounded when the work went on and on and on. Days of pouring gravel and rolling it into the roadbed -- the well access road is now better than the hard road! Here's the first page of two with photos of the new road.

Other events affecting the company in Pennsylvania have us spooked, though. We can't help but believe that the road work and other work in the area is a prelude to a return to drilling here. Oh well. We'll keep everyone posted.