Then I ran across a historical article in the LATimes that perked me right up outta my funkin' ennui. I love to read about California history and I recalled hearing about this quite some time ago.
This is about a huge oil spill in Kern County in 1910. Kern County is kinda California's Oklahoma. Two of its main products are oil and cotton, and the descendants of the local Dust Bowl refugees still have Oklahoma accents. This is Grapes of Wrath country.
California is a good 'union' state, and in this case and still, that means Union Oil and its successors.
Horrific though the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been, its output is still short of what occurred a century ago in scrubby brush about 110 miles north of Los Angeles — site of the Lakeview gusher.
While some experts believe the well off Louisiana has spewed upwards of 60 million gallons of oil into the gulf, the Lakeview well rained about 378 million gallons over an area between the towns of Taft and Maricopa.
I think the 60mil gal estimate is a little low. 60,000bbl/day @ 42gal/bbl for about 60 days is about 150mil gal, but it's anybody's guess. It's a lot. But I digress...
The spill following the April 20 oil rig explosion in the gulf is, of course, a much bigger environmental and economic disaster. But the two wells had one thing in common -- neither could be immediately capped.
Lakeview's geyser of crude, in fact, flowed for more than 17 months.
"It roars and rips like hell," the publication California Oil World said at the time. "It smells and terrifies like hell….Some of those who watched it the first night declared that it ejected glowing stones."
And to think, Lakeview's foreman was a guy nicknamed Dry Hole Charlie because of his association with unproductive wells.
Kinda like George W. Bush who figures prominently in the Gulf spill.
Then, on March 15, 1910, 2,200 feet below the surface, the well blew. (Some sources give the date as March 14.)
The eruption not only demolished the wooden derrick but created "such a large crater that nobody had a chance to get to what was left of the hole to try to control it," author Max Miller wrote.
...
The site became a tourist attraction.
Today, of course, the T-shirts would have been on sale within hours.
Some folks saw the gusher as a sign of disapproval from the Almighty. Hadn't one preacher in Pennsylvania warned drillers that the oil was meant to remain in the earth to "kindle the fires of Hell"?
Finally on Sept. 9, 1911, thousands of feet below the surface, the well caved in and sealed itself. It "died as suddenly as it was born," wrote author William Rintoul.
...
Of the 378 million gallons of oil that gushed out, about 40% was captured. The ensuing surplus dropped the price of oil by about half, to 30 cents a barrel.
Dry Hole Charlie moved on and in the following years "lived up to his previous reputation by drilling only dry holes, one after another," Miller wrote.
Makes ya wonder how he did at chasin' wimmen - the one he caught musta been a doozie...
Thanks to californiacrude, who has lots of CA oil patch videos.
I'll put my tinfoil hat back on tomorrow.
*Update:
Looks like Barton (Oil company suck-up - TX) got the word from On High and has backed off his apology which was apparently misconscrewed by the commie media so it was reported as what he actually said on live TV. Damn those media Libruls!
The asshole stomped on his weenie so hard it looks like a Vibram imprint on a dog turd.
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