Emergency officials managing a gas well blowout in Weld County that spewed natural gas, water, oil well-drilling fluids and volatile organic compounds more than 80 feet into the air for five days finally declared the blowout under control at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

The well is located about 25 miles east of Fort Collins and a mile south of the town of Galeton, at the intersection of Weld County Roads 51 and 72.

Twelve residents living within a half mile of the well were quickly evacuated and housed at hotels paid for by well owner Chevron Oil. Galeton Fire Protection District Chief Russ Kane said there were three residents who refused to evacuate and one person who came back after evacuating but then left again.

Kane announced the successful capping of the well at a public meeting held at the district’s Station 2.

Wild Well Control of Houston, Texas, performed the actual work, said Weld County officials. The company is considered to be the world’s leading well blow-out operation and was responsible for stopping the Kuwait oil field fires in 1991.

About 230 community members attended the meeting and, while it remained peaceful, there were complaints about the lack of detailed information about the cause and effects of the blowout from officials from Weld County, Galeton Fire and Chevron.

Kane’s response to such questions was to point out that the emergency services have been working on getting the well safely shut down, protecting the community and that they were just beginning the transition from the emergency response phase to the evaluation, investigative and cleanup phases, and that the ongoing and long-term effects were still unknown.

Kane and representatives of Weld County Emergency Management and Chevron informed the crowd of the status of the capping. They described the ongoing air monitoring and environmental protections in place since the blowout occurred.

Kane noted continuous air quality monitoring showed air pollution “below levels of concern for public health.”

Fluids from the spill are being channeled into an unlined pit adjacent to the well, where tanker trucks load up the mix of well-boring compounds, oil and other contaminants and take it to a licensed deep-injection well disposal site.

One resident said he’s raising feed for livestock across the road from the blowout and asked about the long-term effects and if the feed is now toxic. Kane said the Unified Command Team has been consulting with veterinarians from Colorado State University in Fort Collins.

The resident called that a “fail,” saying CSU has no experience with this kind of contamination to feed crops or inhaled exposures by livestock.

Others asked if the results of the testing would be available to the public. Kane said he didn’t know when it would be available, but said it is their intention to be fully transparent with the public.

Several other attendees asked various questions, including the size of the wellbore and where the wastewater was going, but Kane deferred and referred them to a series of representatives from the U.S. EPA, Weld County, Chevron, the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission and Colorado Parks and Wildlife set up nearby at tables.

Galeton Elementary School student Cole Ranalli said he was happy that school was canceled on Monday. The school remains closed as of Friday. Officials are contemplating reopening the school Monday but repeated that they were acting out of an abundance of caution.

Cole’s family lives about 5 miles from the well pad, and his father, Tony, said they didn’t notice any impacts where they live.

Ashlea Dillard, who lives in Galeton, about a block from the school, said she saw what she described as “a geyser, (like) a huge waterfall in your backyard,” as she drove by the pad just as the fire department arrived Sunday afternoon. She said she occasionally smelled some fumes, but generally, the wind blew the gas away from town.

“There was a lot of concerns around what exactly was going on,” said Dillard. “If we were going to be evacuated, we’re just right down the street from the school, so we were close to the evacuation zone, but not knowing for sure what was going on or if there’s a risk for fire or gas, being that it’s a hazmat incident.”

Dillard said her family was notified through relatives, and that they didn’t receive any direct warnings from the county or state. She said her parents, who live in Longmont, received an emergency broadcast notification to evacuate Galeton at about 9 p.m. and called her.

Donna Belitz, 87, who lives about a mile and a half away, could look out her window and see the plume, but said she suffered no ill effects from it. She was told about the situation by her neighbor, who, Belitz said, got it from Channel 2 News on Monday.