Fugitives in Our Midst

At inflation, the dimensions of the balloon (in the case of SCVs, the balloon was a cylindrical-shaped balloon, so length and diameter) and the time to fill were recorded. [...] In all cases, new uninflated balloons were first stretched by inflation and/or tugging on the balloon prior to applying it to the escaping gas source to allow the latex to relax in the event the positive pressure at source was enough to continue to inflate the object. [...] This “ballooning” of leaks at SCVs was a slight modification of the standard “bubble test” or “glove test” used in the oil and gas industry to detect leakage and positive pressure from SCVs but allowed us to assess whether there was positive pressure emanating from the SCV (or from vent pipes) and to estimate the volume of gas that was escaping at the time (within the limitations of the basic phys [...] On discovery of a surface-casing vent flow other than one deemed to be “serious”, a well permit holder must: (a) test the flow rate and buildup pressure of the surface-casing vent flow, and (b) submit a surface-casing vent flow report to the commission within 30 days of the discovery of the surface-casing vent flow. [...] The relative locations of the emitting wells are shown in Figure 3. Note that the geographic 14 scale of the area is so large that many of the actual “pinned” emitting well sites do not show up on the map.