“My parents worked in the oilfield. My husband worked in the oilfield. We knew what oil drilling was like in the 80s and 90s. We just didn’t understand how different it would be, when the rigs came in this time.”
“The first thing was the blowout. That was our first indication that this wasn’t going to be a good thing. It threw a chemical fog over our property, and the fog was so thick we could not see the cattle in the field. We had never experienced anything like that in our lives. Pete saw things like that in Iraq, but never here. Never in Wyoming. Then, the flares started– flares that shook our house, and smelled bad, and kept us and the livestock up all night.”
“There were big huge explosions – boom – when the well was burping. It always felt like you were in a war zone. We were constantly on edge from the static in the air, the noise, the vibrations, the constant light, not sleeping. Looking back, I think the sleep deprivation was one of the hardest things. We all left there depressed, fatigued, with sore throats and headaches all the time. Before the oil and gas moved in, we used to walk around outside every day. You’d be out there walking and see the cloud and realize, ‘I can’t get home before that gets to me.’”
View of wells from the Mogens’ farm
Katie Mogen, Kristi’s daughter, after having surgery to have an unexplained tumor removed at age 14. Kristi says:
“We came home after a trip and found Katie’s tumor, a benign soft-tissue tumor the size of an egg. We had it removed because it was obstructing her breathing and swallowing. We’ve had tumors in the cows, but none of those have been cancerous, either. We didn’t know what it was right away, but we knew we couldn’t be there another day. The next day, we found a place online and moved as soon as we could. And when we moved, we specifically chose an area where there was no oil and gas.”
Kristi and Kylee, her youngest daughter, at the 4-H fair in Wyoming. Kylee says:
“We had to move, and leave all our friends, because the government put oil and gas industry’s profits over my health, my family’s health and our environment. I did not feel safe living there.”
