WEEK OF JULY 10, 2025
VOLUME 80 | ISSUE 38
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Chevron accused of violations in Weld well ‘blowout’ Families remain displaced after ‘unprecedented’ incident near Galeton BY CHASE WOODRUFF NEWSLINE COLORADO
Arok Thuch Garang speaks at several churches and nonprofits about Sudanese orphans
PHOTO BY MONTE WHALEY
A ‘Lost Boy of Sudan’ returns to north Denver
Arok Garang said cuts to USAID immediately hurt supplies to the refugees BY MONTE WHALEY MONTE@COTLN.ORG
Cuts to a key international aid program by the Trump administration hit the Seeds of South Sudan education effort quickly and hard, said founder Arok Thuch Garang. The cuts were immediately felt in the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, where orphans rescued by Seeds of South Sudan subsist and struggle for a better life, said Garang, one of the original Lost Boys of Sudan. The USAID organization provided basic needs such as food and medical supplies for the 250,000 who crowded into Kakuma, said Garang, a former Westminster Schools employee. “There wasn’t anything or anybody not affected by cuts,” he said. “Now there is a daily
scramble, a daily competition for rations.” Yet, the young orphans still yearn for an education, which Seeds works to provide through donations, mostly from Americans, Garang said. “We try and help them as much as we can. They (the orphans) want a bright future.”’ Kakuma orphans are selected to attend boarding schools in Kenya for their education. The students received three meals a day, medical care and an education, Garang said. Since the founding of Seeds of South Sudan in 2009, sponsors in the United States have helped educate 187 orphans, Garang said. 82 have graduated from high school and 24 are in college in Kenya, said Peggy Gonder, a spokeswoman for Seeds of South Sudan. Five have earned
VOICES: 6 | CALENDAR: 15 | PUZZLES: 16
scholarships to universities in Canada. Fleeing across Africa Garang’s journey is one of harrowing survival. He said his family herded cattle peacefully in South Sudan until 1989 when oil was discovered on the land, and the Arab Muslim militia from Khartoum declared jihad against southern Christians and traditional believers. The militia set fire to his village, and he fled Sudan at age seven. He said he survived with the aid of a 10-year-old cousin as they traveled 1,000 miles to Ethiopia. They had to flee Ethiopia 18 months later due to war and many died swimming across a crocodile-filled river. It took him and his cousin a year to walk to the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, “a brutally hot and dangerous place,” Ga-
rang said on the Seeds of South Sudan website. Garang said he spent nearly 10 years in the Kakuma refugee camp before coming to Denver in 2001 with the help of the United Nations. He then earned a degree in economics at the University of ColoradoDenver. He eventually returned to South Sudan to help his people answer God’s calling, he said. “Throughout the years, I’ve heard God calling me to rebuild my village by educating, equipping, and empowering the South Sudanese children who survived the genocide,” Garang has said.
This week, Garang disclosed the meaning behind the Seeds
of South Sudan name. SEE LOST BOY, P2
Colorado regulators on Thursday launched an enforcement action against oil giant Chevron for an April well “blowout” that caused evacuations and closures in a community in eastern Weld County. Officials with the Energy and Carbon Management Commission said Thursday that some residents remain displaced from their homes in tiny Galeton, an unincorporated town of 250 people located about 10 miles northeast of Greeley, nearly three months after the incident at Chevron’s Bishop well pad. The well failure caused a highpressure flow of oil, gas and water to spew from the site for five days before emergency crews were able to bring it under control. With millions of gallons of fluid released, it’s believed to be one of the largest oil and gas spills in state history, and the resulting plume spread dangerous levels of toxic chemicals as far as two miles away, according to data from Colorado State University researchers. “I can say with certainty that this is significant and unprecedented during my tenure, not just in terms of volumes released … but in terms of complexity, in terms of scale of impact to environmental services, as well as residents,” said Jeff Robbins, who has served as chair of the fivemember ECMC board of commissioners since 2020. A so-called notice of alleged violation issued by ECMC staff to Chevron subsidiary Noble Energy lists six different breaches of the agency’s rules, initiating what is likely to be a lengthy regulatory enforcement action. The notice accuses Chevron of violating water quality standards, breaking employee safety rules, “fail(ing) to engineer and operate all equipment within the manufacturer’s recommended specifications,” and more. An initial analysis completed by Chevron earlier this month identified the root cause of the incident as “improper assembly” of on-site equipment by a contractor. A total of 16 oil SEE BLOWOUT, P27
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