The Rattlesnake Well's Hidden Energy
Engineers claim a natural gas well in the Rattlesnake district could power regional irrigation and heat every town from Ellensburg to Walla Walla.
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It seems difficult for the innocent bystander or the indifferent listener to appreciate the significance of the well in the Rattlesnake district which has been flowing natural gas for more than three years. Even the inexperienced visitor fails to realize that the well as it stands today is producing enough fuel to supply the needs of Kennewick and some 50 other towns, or that it is sending forth enough energy to pump irrigation water to 4,000 acres of desert land. Herbert C. Harris, who recently came from California and organized the Walla Walla Gas, Oil Pipe Line company, says that the present flow is great enough to supply fuel to the city of Spokane with several thousand cubic feet to spare. E. H. Talcott, a petroleum engineer of Seattle, calculated that the volume of the flow was at the rate of about 300,000 to 315,000 cubic feet per 24 hours. Talcott believes that drilling more wells will disclose a remarkable flow of natural gas at high pressure and suggests the gas could be piped to the Yakima River for irrigation or sold to valley towns for fuel and light at a very profitable rate.
“The flow and pressure of the gas from the well is evidently very constant and this would clearly indicate that this well is receiving its supply from a distant reservoir which has an immense volume.”
The dream of the Rattlesnake Hills gas field as an inexhaustible regional power source was a central hope for early 20th-century development in the Columbia Basin. Today, this area is a significant site for renewable energy projects, mirroring the same century-long struggle to balance industrial extraction with the immense power potential of the local geography.
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