Coalbed Methane
Wyoming is the nation’s third-leading producer of coalbed methane, a form of natural gas. Much of the state’s production happens in the Powder River Basin in northeast Wyoming. As in most states, the State of Wyoming has authority to enforce the federal Clean Water Act within the State of Wyoming. This authority, referred to as “primacy,” is granted to the State Department of Environmental Quality once the Environmental Protection Agency reviews Wyoming’s statutory and regulatory authority and determines that the state’s regulations are at least as stringent as the federal statute and regulations.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council monitors many aspects of the Clean Water Act, but we focus on the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Program under Section 402 of the Clean Water Act. The EPA has granted Wyoming authority to handle the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Program since the 1970s. But often, gas companies will push the DEQ to accommodate their needs—to bend the rules, in effect. This can put the DEQ’s regulatory and enforcement decisions at odds with federal requirements. The Wyoming Outdoor Council keeps tabs on how the DEQ enforces its own regulations and how its revisions to its regulations conform to federal requirements.
In March 2001, the Council filed a challenge to Wyoming’s primacy over its water pollution discharge program with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In response, the EPA audited the program and improved it significantly.
In recent years, the Outdoor Council has been involved in the decision by the Water Quality Division to issue general permits for discharges of produced water from wells producing coalbed methane. These general permits are controversial: Large volumes of water are involved in such discharges, and many ranchers believe the water damages ranchlands, particularly bottomlands, since CBM-produced water tends to be too saline to support native grasses. This means pastures are not as nutritious for grazing cattle.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council challenged both the Willow Creek and Pumpkin Creek Watershed General Permits in November 2006. That case was later joined with an industry challenge to the same permits. After a four-day hearing in April 2008, the Environmental Quality Council ruled in our favor June 24, 2008, on most of the important issues in contention at the hearing. The EQC determined the entire drainage of each creek must be protected for native grasses at a minimum, and for other more sensitive crops, such as alfalfa, where those crops are being grown in the drainage. This marked a significant shift from DEQ policy, since the Water Quality Division had only previously protected irrigated crops. No irrigation meant no protection for native grasses.
Marathon Oil and Yates Petroleum, the industry litigants, appealed the EQC decision to state district court. The Outdoor Council entered the case and submitted its briefs in early 2009.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council will continue our efforts to monitor the state’s discharge pollution program because of the program’s implications across Wyoming. It is our hope that the Willow/Pumpkin general watershed case, and the associated EQC decision, will give greater protection for ranchers’ bottomlands in the context of future DEQ regulations, including the Agricultural Use Protection Policy now in the works.