Midwest residents report unexplained illnesses as gas leak investigation continues

An 18-year-old mother, who graduated from school last week, said she was suffering from hives and expressed concerns about her newborn son's health.

Another woman said she also had hives and said her daughter, a student at Midwest, had been complaining of headaches since the beginning of the school year.

And one longtime resident, who reported no health problems, said he's considering moving from that community of 418 out of fear for its air quality.

“It seems to me that no matter what you do, you get some kind of contamination all the time,” said Eolus Linville, an 18-year-old Midwest resident, referring to the nearby Salt Creek oil field.

State and local officials have said there is no public health risk since the Midwest School closed its doors on May 26. The school remained closed while about 150 K-12 students finish the academic year in the former North Casper Elementary building.

No health problems had been reported to county health officials or school staff, they said Friday.

“Nothing has come to Dennis' attention or my attention or those we work with,” Natrona County School District Superintendent Steve Hopkins said, referring to the district's director of operations and facilities Dennis Bay.

Trouble began on May 25, when school staff first reported a gas odor.

Half the building was on lockdown, with students and staff being sent to the other side of the school. Natrona County School District officials and representatives of Black Hills Energy, a utility, investigated and determined the odor was not the result of a natural gas leak.

The school was then called FDL Energy, which owns and operates the adjacent Salt Creek field. The company took an air quality sample that found abnormal levels of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds. The windows of the school had been opened at the time to ventilate the building.

On Monday, the Department of Environmental Quality conducted a second test, which showed higher levels of carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The school's windows were closed all weekend, said Audrey Gray, health preparedness manager for the Casper-Natrona County Health Department.

“It was certainly higher than we would expect for normal carbon dioxide, and obviously we wouldn't want to see a WTO,” Gray said.

However, local and state officials do not have the ability to fully interpret these readings. It is unclear what type of VOCs may be present or the magnitude of exposure to students or staff. Local officials met with their federal counterparts Friday in hopes of finding more answers.

VOCs are a collection of chemicals that are emitted from solids and liquids as a gas. Sources can range from household items such as paints and aerosol sprays to industrial activities such as oil and gas wells. Some can be very toxic, while others have no known health effects.

Air quality monitors were also installed in the area around the school by a third party contractor hired by FDL. Those monitors have not picked up any abnormal readings, said Justin Westmoreland, FDL's director of health and safety.

Three repair rigs continued to investigate shut-in wells Friday in efforts to locate the source of the odor, he said.

“We are working diligently to find the source,” Westmoreland said.

That proved little consolation to some residents, who pointed to a 2014 incident where two of the school's kitchen staff fell ill after smelling an unfamiliar smell. One had to be transported to Casper for medical treatment.

Local, state and national health officials conducted what they described as an exhaustive investigation. They looked for methane, mold and volatile organic compounds, among other things.

“We couldn't find anything,” Gray said. “It was unclear.”

A press release from county and school officials late Thursday said no scientific evidence links the 2014 case to this one. Hopkins said odors were detected in various parts of the school.

However, the situation supported many of the concerns expressed by parents and former students.

Skylar Baeriswyl gave birth four months ago and graduated from high school last week. She is upset that she may have spent the past year studying among poisonous gases.

“It's very disappointing that they let things go on as long as they did,” he said.

Baeriswyl has developed hives and is worried about the health of her infant son, who has not experienced any unexplained illnesses. She buys bottled water from Casper instead of allowing her family to drink the water in the Midwest. She said she will take legal action if her son starts getting sick.

He learned about FDL's temporary housing offer in Casper through a Star-Tribune article. Company officials say they went door-to-door at homes near the school shortly after the smell was detected and offered to put residents up in a hotel if they were uncomfortable with the situation. As of Friday, only one person had.

But Baeriswyl said the FDL should hold a community meeting so locals can ask questions and better understand what's going on.

“They just need to let people know what's going on,” he said.

Standing not far from the school, a woman wiped tears from her eyes with a tissue as she spoke about the situation.

The woman, who declined to give her name, has been suffering from saucer-sized hives on her skin for the past two years. They appear on her arms, legs, back, chest, stomach. They itch and hurt to the touch. She's not allergic to anything that would cause them, she said.

He fears it is the water in the Midwest.

“They don't tell everybody what's going on here for a reason,” he said.

The woman knows many parents who seek legal counsel after discovering the gas leak at the school. He said that on the day of the spill, he was informed of the situation by school officials at noon. However, they kept students in the building.

“Our guys stayed there the rest of the day,” he said.

Although the energy company has offered to house Midwest residents in Casper, the woman said she doesn't want to move her family.

“This is my home,” he said. “That's what worries me the most about it. My daughter wants to go to school here. He doesn't want to go to school in Casper. She doesn't want to go to school at Kaycee. He wants to go to school here. That was taken away from her at this point.”

Chasity Taylor, mother of two Midwest School students who have felt sick frequently over the past year, said she had discussed her sons' lethargy with their teachers. Although her 9-year-old and 6-year-old had complained of headaches, fussiness and lack of appetite, she did not report this to the school because she did not believe it was due to the school environment.

“I just thought it was normal after school stuff,” Taylor said. “But now that I know what's in there and how they act, it makes a lot more sense.”

The Salt Creek field is among the oldest and most productive in Wyoming. However, more than a century of production has left a number of shut-in and abandoned wells in and around the Midwest that have long been used as the heart of the field.

A closed well in the front yard of Midwest School was opened in 1925 and plugged in 1993, according to state well records. A repair rig has been working on that well since last Friday, said Westmoreland, the FDL health director.

There are at least four other shut-in wells in the immediate area around the school, Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records show. The earliest drilling was in 1921, the latest in 1987. All reported their last production in 2005 or 2007.

The OGCC does not conduct inspections of wells once they are plugged, said Kimberly Mazza, a spokeswoman for the commission. The well on the school's front lawn, for example, was inspected upon its closing in 1993, he said.