Coalbed Methane Development Threatens Ranching, Crops, Streams & Wildlife

by Jerry Freilich, Ph.D.

The most serious environmental impact of industrial-scale coalbed methane (CBM) development in the Powder River Basin and elsewhere in Wyoming is the trillions of gallons of poor-quality water that will be pumped out of coal seams and dumped onto the land and into streams. But a number of other development-related impacts also pose serious threats to the basin's landscape, wildlife and local residents.

A Deluge of Tainted Water

The Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on CBM development in the Powder River Basin suggests that most CBM discharge water will simply evaporate or percolate harmlessly down into deep aquifers (how convenient!), never entering streams and lakes.

However, in extensive comments submitted to the BLM, a panel of 13 distinguished experts assembled by WOC disagreed with nearly every one of the agency's contentions. Instead, the experts predicted that large amounts of this chemical-laden water will enter streams, severely degrading native fish species and their invertebrate food base.

The BLM would have us imagine that thousands of small reservoirs will harmlessly hold CBM discharge water while it evaporates or percolates away. Instead, our science experts predict that local springs and seeps will dry up as the groundwater water table drops.

In addition, the enormous volumes of CBM discharge water will create erosion and slumping where it is allowed to run directly into local drainages. In other places, it will run into low-lying areas, drowning established cottonwood trees and clogging the pores of range soils due to its high Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR). As the soils become increasingly impermeable to water, more and more of that water will move into shallow aquifers and, from there, into streams and rivers.

An Assault on Prairie Streams

Under CBM assault, prairie rivers will be flushed by constant high-volume flow. Don't be fooled by promises that these conditions would favor game fish. The rivers of northeast Wyoming have never been preferred trout waters and they should not be transformed into trout streams at the expense of rare and vanishing native aquatic species. As the flow of prairie rivers are altered and the streams are dammed, polluted and channelized, there is virtually no place left where fish like Shovelnose sturgeon, Sauger and Sturgeon chub can exist.

17,000 Miles of New Roads

Aquatic species won't be the only victims of runaway CBM development. As proposed by the BLM, development associated with Wyoming CBM extraction will turn 8 million acres of biologically rich land into an industrial zone. The BLM says that 17,000 miles of new roads, 20,000 miles of pipelines and 5,000 miles of power lines will be built to accommodate CBM development.

What the agency doesn't say is that this construction will affect a much larger area. The BLM repeatedly points to the small area that will actually be bladed by bulldozers in building 17,000 miles of roads. But ecologists see this issue differently.

An enormous amount of scientific literature has documented the disastrous effects of road building on wildlife. Roads are death traps for animals, directly reducing their habitat and killing them in vehicle collisions.

But that's only the beginning. Many species simply cannot or do not cross roads.

As large patches of rangeland are chopped up by increasing road density, animals simply cannot live there and abandon the area. Sage grouse, long-billed curlews, grassland sparrows and numerous other species are particularly sensitive to roads. For an excellent overview of this issue, see the Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads' website: http://www.wildlandscpr.org/.

An Industrial Wasteland

In its detailed comments to the BLM, our panel of experts outlined the potential for ecological devastation in each technical area addressed in the agency's DEIS. Crops, livestock, prairie streams and aquatic species will be threatened by CBM discharge water. Air quality will be heavily impacted. Soils will be clogged and poisoned. Birds and mammals will leave the resulting wasteland.

The DEIS is replete with "protective" provisions such as prohibiting CBM drilling within 400 yards of any known sage grouse lek. Such provisions are naove at best, and deliberately misleading at worst. Imagine a hapless sage grouse surveying its 400-yard "no drilling" buffer while surrounded by a 360-degree moonscape of roads, drill pads and bladed soil.

In its determination to fast-track CBM and other oil and gas development in the West, the Bush Administration seems to believe that our environment has no value at all. A bladed, roaded, high-density industrial zone in the Powder River Basin will support neither domestic livestock nor the thousands of small species that make up our native ecosystem.

Wake up, Wyoming, while there's still time!