WOC Pressures Agencies to Reform Coalbed Methane Development

by Tom Darin

WOC is continuing its efforts to ensure responsible coalbed methane (CBM) development in Wyoming.

As we reported in the last issue of Frontline, WOC succeeded in extending the deadline for public comment on the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) massive environmental study for up to 70,000 CBM wells in the Powder River Basin.

I, along with Michele Barlow, director of WOC's Environmental Quality and Justice Program, prepared 40-plus pages of detailed comments on the project, covering issues such as aquifer recharge, water quality and expanding the scope of the analysis into the Montana portion of the basin and beyond the 35,000 wells the BLM foresees in the next decade. A draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) is due next spring.

EPA weighs in

WOC has also enlisted the assistance of Region 8 of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in our campaign to reform CBM development. EPA has particular CBM expertise and oversight responsibilities under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act to regulate the injection of water and fracing fluids into underground aquifers. (Fracing, shorthand for fracturing, is the injection of fluids at high pressure into a coal seam to force methane to the surface.)

In July, a group of conservationists traveled to Denver to meet with EPA officials. Our delegation included WOC executive director Dan Heilig, Michele Barlow, myself, several Wyoming landowners and scientists and environmental activists from Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. We presented our case to EPA in an all-day meeting, attended by 17 EPA staffers. The meeting was a huge success: EPA is now an important player in ensuring environmentally safe CBM development in Wyoming.

Within days of the meeting, and with a draft of our Powder River Basin CBM scoping comments in hand, EPA weighed in with its own comments to the BLM. Specifically, EPA agreed with WOC that the EIS must include an analysis of CBM development proposed in the entire Powder River Basin-including Montana- rather than limiting its analysis to the Wyoming portion of the basin, and that it must analyze the effects of 70,000 wells forecast by the year 2060, not simply the 35,000 wells projected in the next 10 to 15 years.

EPA also urged the BLM to amend its Buffalo area resource management plan (RMP) to properly study and analyze CBM development. Amending the RMP, which WOC has demanded for some time, would require the BLM to consider-for the first time-whether all the lands under its jurisdiction should be open to CBM development and, if so, under what conditions. We have argued that certain lands, such as important wildlife habitat and areas containing erosive soils, should be off-limits to CBM activities.

Debating Water Quality

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), which had halted all new CBM water discharge permits after WOC and the Powder River Basin Resource Council protested them, has resumed issuing permits for new CBM wells over WOC's objections. The agency's rationale for issuing new permits is that industry has provided data to DEQ claiming that high salinity and sodium concentrations will not impair existing agricultural uses.

In response, WOC has stepped up its efforts on CBM water-quality issues. Working closely with Dr. Larry Munn, soils scientist at the University of Wyoming, we have provided DEQ with additional water-quality data. The data shows that, because of high concentrations of salts and sodium, much of CBM discharge water is unsuitable for irrigation and may harm native vegetation. (See related story on page 15.)

In September, I met with key department heads at the University of Wyoming to discuss two major water-quality studies being conducted by UW. The first is a comprehensive chemical characterization of CBM product water and an analysis of the effects this water has on western wheatgrass, and the second is studying the impacts of CBM product water on the reproduction and survival of aquatic invertebrates.

As the debate concerning CBM discharge water's impacts on wildlife, fisheries, agriculture and drinking water continues, WOC will press DEQ to ensure that existing water uses in Wyoming are not impaired by CBM development.

CBM Spreading Statewide

CBM development is not solely the problem of folks living in the Powder River Basin. WOC is paying close attention to exploratory and pilot CBM projects around the state.

In July, we submitted preliminary comments on the BLM's proposed 19-well Seminoe Road pilot CBM project near the Seminoe Reservoir northeast of Rawlins. In September, we filed comments with the Pinedale BLM field office regarding a five-well CBM pilot project southwest of Big Piney. This area is close to the Bridger-Teton National Forest, near the headwaters of the Green River. In our comments on both projects, we pointed out that they are illegal, since the BLM's underlying Resource Management Plans fail to address CBM development.

WOC is also continuing its campaign to educate citizens about the impacts of CBM development and encourage public comments and debate on this important issue. Careful planning, mitigation actions and a thorough understanding of CBM's environmental impacts before the onslaught of wells will help Wyoming's families and communities determine how and where CBM production should take place, rather than allowing industry to run roughshod over our wishes and our environment.