Source of gas that sparked Wheatley explosion still unknown, leaving Ontario town in limbo

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In the centre of Wheatley, Ont., where a pub and a small hotel once stood, there’s now a flattened gravel lot. A “scrubber” – a metal box and a makeshift-looking network of pipes – filters and renders harmless the small amounts of gas that still flow up from under the ground here.

The industrial equipment that sits in the middle of this small Southwestern Ontario town on the shore of Lake Erie is a constant reminder of the massive blast here 19 months ago, when that gas – a mix of methane and lethal hydrogen sulphide – leaked into a basement through a drain and ignited.

Two buildings were destroyed, and 20 people were injured. The future of the town was left in limbo, its centre cordoned off for an exclusion zone.

Now, despite spending at least $7.5-million plugging two old water wells and one gas well at the site, the provincial government and its engineering consultant still have not found the ultimate source of the gas, which is believed to be leaking from one or more nearby disused gas wells.

And despite warnings about the dangers posed by thousands of similar abandoned gas wells, some dating back to the 19th century, the Ontario government has said only that it is still developing a new strategy for dealing with them. A Globe and Mail investigation revealed that Ontario had for years ignored concerns about these wells without operators, which are known as orphan wells. A Globe analysis found that more than 7,400 of them dot the province.

At a recent town hall meeting at a local golf clubhouse, Wheatley residents were shocked to hear expert recommendations that two more buildings near the site, the Car Barn restaurant and a nail salon, be torn down in order to facilitate the hunt for the source of the leak. The area would likely have to become a park, with a scrubber and potentially an unsightly “flare stack” as permanent fixtures. Residents were also advised to purchase their own gas detectors for their basements.

The meeting was held to share summaries of two long-awaited reports: One by WSP Canada Inc., formerly Golder Associates, which was hired by the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry in the aftermath of the disaster; and another from Alberta-based oil and gas well expert Theresa Watson, retained by the municipality of Chatham-Kent, which includes Wheatley. It was Ms. Watson who recommended tearing down more buildings.

The town had previously said it was interested in acquiring 11 properties around the evacuated site, and that it had contacted landowners. But the owner of the Car Barn, Barry Broadbent, said in an interview that he was blindsided by the proposal to tear down his barbecue chicken joint, a Wheatley mainstay for 36 years until it was fenced off after the explosion.

While municipal officials had discussed purchasing his property, he said, they never mentioned demolishing it. (Ms. Watson’s report making that recommendation was dated Nov. 22, meaning Chatham-Kent officials had known this was a likely course of action for months.)

“It was up on the screen and I’m sitting beside people and they said, ‘You didn’t know anything about this?’ I said, ‘I’m hearing about it for the first time just like you are,’” Mr. Broadbent said. “I was devastated. All it does is throw another wrench into the whole scenario.”

David Taylor, the director of legal services for Chatham-Kent, said in an e-mail to The Globe that it was a mistake not to let Mr. Broadbent know before the meeting that his property could be bulldozed. Mr. Taylor said he later apologized to Mr. Broadbent in a phone call.

Town officials had originally believed the detailed recommendations were best delivered by the expert consultants themselves, Mr. Taylor said.

Ms. Watson said in an interview that finding and capping an undocumented old gas well under the Car Barn or the nail salon could solve the problem of the leaking gas, and allow the town to move on. But she warned that the gas could be coming from any number of older wells within a two-kilometre radius, and that the source might never be found.

“If we don’t find a gas well close by in the area, then it’s a bit of a crapshoot as to which well or wells might be causing the problem,” she said.

This spring, a “flow test,” in which a crew will use pumped water to force a larger amount of gas out of a monitoring well at the site, may provide more answers about the town’s future, she said.

In addition to the uncertainty at Wheatley, questions remain about the provincial government’s lack of action on the thousands of other potentially dangerous old oil and gas wells in Ontario. The government has said since last summer that it is developing a plan.

Graydon Smith, Ontario’s Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry, previously said his government needed to see WSP’s report on Wheatley before finalizing any new strategy. (While the government has said it spent $7.5-million on work at the site, that number does not include what it is paying WSP, an amount it would not disclose.)

Now he says he plans to embark on a listening tour of affected municipalities, which are mostly in Southwestern Ontario, before deciding how to improve on the current system. The government recently put out a request for proposals, seeking consultants to perform a “literature review and jurisdictional scan report” on “the management of legacy oil and gas wells.”

In Western provinces, industry-funded programs usually cover the costs of properly plugging this kind of orphan well, which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Ontario holds landowners financially responsible for cleanup.

The province currently provides some landowners with money from its Abandoned Works Program to cap wells, but the program’s budget of $2-million to $3-million only covers the costs of about 20 sites a year.

In a brief interview, Mr. Smith said he expects the province’s forthcoming strategy to start with assessing which known orphan oil and gas wells pose the biggest risks.

“I’ve always said to the officials down in Wheatley, with the municipality, this will be a learning moment. And I don’t mean that in a trite way,” Mr. Smith said. “We very much want this information to inform our future strategy going forward.”

He would not rule out offering more economic aid to the town’s businesses. Local business owners say government assistance has dried up, even though some are still unable to use their properties and others are fighting with reluctant insurance companies. Ontario has already provided $3.8-million in disaster relief.

Howard Gabert, a Wheatley resident and chair of the community’s Wheatley Task Force, said his town and other municipalities with oil and gas well issues should band together to push the province for more action.

But for now, he said, many in the town are more worried about having a patch of petroleum equipment, and potentially a 15-metre-high flare stack, become the permanent face of their downtown.

“I think there’s a general sentiment amongst the town that this would not have gone on this long if we weren’t small-town Ontario, far away from the big city where all the money flows,” Mr. Gabert said.