Derek Neary
Northern News Services
Fort Liard (Mar 02/01) - You can't beat the scenery that accompanies Stephanie Kotchea's job.
"That's one thing I fell in love with when I first started working out there," she said of the majestic mountains 25 km north of Fort Liard. "It's glorious."
Not that she has an abundance of time to admire her surroundings. As a field operator for Chevron Canada, Kotchea is always checking something.
On the main panel in the gas plant office there is a myriad of gauges, switches and buttons. The checking doesn't stop there.
"It takes a good hour to walk around the plant and just check everything over. We check all the numbers and record everything," she said, adding that the gas is cooled and dehydrated on site.
First aid kits and fire extinguishers also have to be examined regularly.
"Everybody is really safety conscious," she said.
"You just want to make sure if there was a real emergency everything would be there."
There is a great deal of maintenance and administrative work attached to her job as well.
"Typical housekeeping... plus bills to pay off and invoices and paperwork to do," she noted.
"There's some routine things, but overall there's always something else happening every day."
She began working for Chevron in September, but had previous experience from a year-and-a-half of employment with Alberta Energy Company (AEC).
She has undergone a great deal of on-the-job training in addition to attaining her requisite safety tickets. Working with mostly men, she compares it to a family environment.
"They treat me like a sister almost. They tease me and bug me like their buddies. But we do give each other respect and space," she said.
"I think a lot of it is that you have to be comfortable with yourself when you're out there."
Kotchea spends eight days on site at Chevron's gas plant near the K-29 well site, and then gets six days off. After her 10 hour shift, she sleeps in a nearby trailer.
"If you're right on sight you can get to a problem right away. We want to keep that well running 24 hours a day, seven days a week," she said.
Although there hasn't been a forced evacuation due to a hydrogen sulphide leak in her time on the job, the potentially lethal gas is always a concern, she admitted. Being methodical in completing her tasks is a key to avoiding emergencies.
"It's good to spend an extra ten minutes on your job after you finish just to make sure everything is back to where it was," she said.
In the future, she hopes to pursue an environmental career within the industry, she added.
