New oil well in Millennium Park

[walker]

Not exactly urban construction news, but in these hard times you've got to go with what you can find:

As you likely know if you spend any time in Millennium Park, there are plenty of active oil wells.  I don’t know what the deal is exactly.  While Kent County owns the property maybe the previous owners retained the mineral rights or maybe the county leased out the mineral rights, not sure.  In any case, I always assumed these were all old wells near the end of their lives left over from the Kent County oil boom back in the forties.  But I discovered a new well being drilled and not just maintenance to an old well.  

The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing most of my daily long walks in Johnson Park and Millennium Park and I’ve noticed construction going on along Kent Trails next to the river a little past the dead-end of Veterans Memorial Drive that’s north of Maynard.  Since it initially looked like path or road construction through a swamp, my first thought was that this was going to be an additional walking path through the park.  But then I noticed a few days ago the name of an oil well drilling company on the side of one of the trucks.  They built a road around behind and into the swamp and yesterday they brought in some well drilling equipment.  Here are some photos I took today.

I’m surprised this is allowed given that all other private construction is shut down.  It’s not like they were half-way through the drilling process and couldn’t shut down till it was capped since last week they were just building their access road.  It is also ironic that someone would be drilling a well in Kent County the same week that oil futures for May are way negative.  Oil companies are giving people money to take oil off their hands because there’s no place to store it.

Edited April 29, 2020 by walker

[walker]

Not sure why I got  so many confusion emojis on the previous post.  Was it because what I wrote was confusing, possibly the first signs of dementia, or maybe just confusion about what was going on in the  photos?  In any case, I walked by today the same spot.  Water is high after all this rain but there's no longer any sign of oil drilling or an oil well.  Some of the construction equipment is still lying around though along with part of their road:

Now I'm confused.

Edited May 19, 2020 by walker

[joeDowntown]

Maybe people were using that emoji to show annoyance at the project? Seemed pretty clear to me.

Joe

[Raildude's dad]

Here's a link to the EGLE website for gas & oil wells. I spent some time looking for the well data but didn't have any luck . Maybe you have more time to explore, plus you know exactly where the well is located.  I'm going to guess a well plugging.

https://www.michigan.gov/egle/0,9429,7-135-3311_4231---,00.html

[walker]

1 hour ago, Raildude's dad said:

Here's a link to the EGLE website for gas & oil wells. I spent some time looking for the well data but didn't have any luck . Maybe you have more time to explore, plus you know exactly where the well is located.  I'm going to guess a well plugging.

https://www.michigan.gov/egle/0,9429,7-135-3311_4231---,00.html

Interesting link.  I'd guess well plugging too.  I wouldn't think they would usually use drilling equipment to plug a well, but it's not something  I know anything about.  I don't remember seeing an old pump there in the past and they were working right in the swamp.  Maybe an old buried supposedly plugged well was leaking into the swamp.  

The red splotch  on this Google view is roughly where it's at:

Edited May 20, 2020 by walker
fix very minor typo

[arcturus]

On 5/19/2020 at 3:04 PM, joeDowntown said:

Maybe people were using that emoji to show annoyance at the project? Seemed pretty clear to me.

Joe

And close to the Castle!  Any tie-in would create an emoji explosion.

[walker]

Just an update, if anyone at all happens to care.  I walked by today and the water has receded and the construction equipment is gone but their construction road is still there.  Where they were drilling (or plugging or whatever) there is something that looks like a galvanized fire pit flush to the ground filled with water with a tree limb sticking out of it:

Hard to see through the detritus but inside the hole it looks like  there is some kind of metal plug:

   

[thebeerqueer]

10 hours ago, walker said:

Just an update, if anyone at all happens to care.  I walked by today and the water has receded and the construction equipment is gone but their construction road is still there.  Where they were drilling (or plugging or whatever) there is something that looks like a galvanized fire pit flush to the ground filled with water with a tree limb sticking out of it:

I noticed this on a bike ride on Sunday. There were people sort of  wandering around this area. So strange, is it a new path/part of the park or to be used for commercial purposes?