*****************water management*****************
By DUSTIN BLEIZEFFER
Star-Tribune energy reporter
Thursday, July 1, 2004 11:59 PM MDT
GILLETTE -- A few dozen men will drill five new coalbed methane gas wells today in northeast Wyoming. A hundred or so will toil to construct pipelines, and hundreds more will work to maintain this multi-million-dollar-per-day industry that is expected to grow beyond 50,000 wells.
And at the same time, about a half-dozen lawyers will enter the Joseph C. O'Mahoney Federal Center building in Cheyenne today to argue to suspend the work.
"It is such a huge project and we are playing kind of a guessing game, especially with the water management," said Pennie Vance of the Powder River Basin Resource Council.
Oral arguments begin today in the Western Organization of Resource Councils vs. Kathleen Clarke lawsuit in U.S. District Court before Judge Alan B. Johnson. The PRBRC is among several environmental groups that are a party to the case. At least five coalbed methane producers and the state of Wyoming have intervened on behalf of the Bureau of Land Management.
The lawsuit challenges the legality of the BLM's amended Buffalo Field Office Resource Management Plan. The plan and a related Environmental Impact Statement, allows up to 51,000 coalbed methane gas wells in the Powder River Basin. Vance argues that for all the people that the industry employs, there are even more ranchers, sportsmen and residents who are adversely impacted by the development.
To produce the methane, production wells bleed the coalbed methane water to the surface. The PRBRC and others argue that the federal government's plan for and oversight of the activity does not adequately protect downstream irrigators, wildlife or the environment from the water's impacts.
Coalbed methane water can be highly saline, and it can cause problems for ranchers when it is mixed with the region's saline soils. And there's a lot that is not completely understood about the activity, such as how it affects the subterranean aquifers and how long it will take for the aquifers to recharge.
But others say that the industry has undergone a lot of changes since its beginnings in the 1990s, particularly within the past year under the BLM's new Resource Management Plan.
"The techniques have changed a little bit. (The BLM's) analysis has changed and some of their requirements have changed," said Rick Robitaille, spokesman for Anadarko Petroleum, an intervener on behalf of the BLM.
"They seem to be communicating those positions with industry and industry is responding. As a consequence we are seeing a backlog of permits," Robitaille said.
On April 30, 2003, the BLM completed more than three years of analysis on the Powder River Basin Oil and Gas Environmental Impact Statement and RMP revision. The Montana BLM worked concurrently on its own revision that allows for more than 20,000 coalbed methane wells in the Big Sky State.
Several groups filed three separate lawsuits against the BLM in District Court in Billings, Mont., arguing that the BLM should have completed one EIS for the whole geological Powder River Basin. The action is in line with the argument that the BLM did not adequately consider the broader, cumulative impacts of such a large development.
But the state of Wyoming successfully argued for a change of venue to bring those matters concerning Wyoming's development to Wyoming courts. Today's oral arguments deal only with the portion of the project located in Wyoming.
The Petroleum Association of Wyoming -- which is not a party to the any of the lawsuits -- argues that the BLM's revised RMP is a not a blank check to the industry. Rather, it sets the stage for site-specific analysis and permitting requirements.
"(The BLM) will conduct even more analysis before individual wells are drilled," said PAW vice president Dru Bower. "Industry believes that BLM's exhaustive analyses are more than adequate and should be affirmed by the court."
According to a press release, Earthjustice will argue that the BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act "by moving forward with the plan without considering the full impacts of the project on groundwater, surface water, and air quality -- and, consequently, without considering how best to mitigate these impacts."
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