Climate Change in Wyoming

 I live in the beautiful state of Wyoming. We have a lot of natural resources in this state that includes Coal, Petroleum, Natural Gas (Methane Gas). 

We also have a lot of wind in Wyoming so there are a lot of Windmill farms that have popped up over the last decade.

I work in the oil and gas industry, it's provided a stable job which my family and I have been blessed to raise our family with.

In the field I currently work in there is also a windfarm. Along the many oil wells are many more windmills that are spinning around or not spinning around depending on the day, than oil wells that are visible. It's not uncommon to have a oil well pad and just up the road less than 1/4 of a mile a couple of windmills.

The footprint of the oil industry is vastly smaller than that of windmill farms. On a given oil well pad we'll have anywhere from 3 to 12 oil wells on one location. When the wells are no longer economical we'll plug those wells according to government regulations and then reclaim the land, and much of the time you can not even tell a oil well production facility was ever there. 

Most oil production companies actually have an environmental team, and we're all trained on what we need to do to protect the environment. We know where these resources come from and want to protect the environment while also sustaining our livelihoods.

However, I will say that incident's don't happen, we don't live in a perfect world. I used to work in the Coal Bed Methane fields. The water coming from those wells were not treated like the water that comes off of the oil wells before it's pumped back into the ground.

Here's an article about a rancher who saw the adverse affects of climate change and coal bed methane water affect his ranch.

https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/article_0832f045-c619-5899-ae1d-86bbf92b515e.html



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