Involvement reins in developers
Sunday, February 26, 2006 2:06 AM MST
Editor:
With the pace, climate and method of natural gas and coal-bed methane development out of control, what can the Wyoming citizen do? We can demand that the BLM and other agencies see that each major field is responsibly drilled and producing before leasing and opening another.
We can demand enough state DEQ and oil and gas inspectors to police the many violations in the gas fields. There is only a $500 bond for CBM waste ponds and that hundreds were built illegally without a permit in the Powder River Basin; CBM drainage is damaging watercourses and killing hay fields and cottonwood trees. We can legislate that CBM water be reinjected, especially to increase production of failing oil wells or treated to be safe for irrigation or other beneficial uses.
With the production of Natural Gas having peaked in 1973; it now takes many more, and more closely spaced wells to try to maintain production. Coal-bed methane by its nature requires many wells (infill drilling). If we don't want the total surface destruction and extirpation of wildlife in fields where wells are spaced every ten, twenty or forty acres; we can require directional (slant) drilling where many wells can be drilled from a single pad with a single road.
There are 159,000 proposed new gas wells in the next generation; in addition to the many thousands already in place. We have lost the Powder River Basin, we're damaging the Pinedale resource area including forest areas in the Wyoming Range and Hoback areas. Parts of the Red Desert are succumbing to industrial development and 10,000 more wells, many in precious places like Adobe Town and the Jack Morrow Hills. We are drilling two and a half to 300 times more wells than any other western state.
Now is the time to rein in this corporate juggernaut of industrial development for the sake of our people and economy; our wildlife and landscapes, to protect the tourism and sports industry, our second most valuable and sustainable.
Don't feel that as an individual who values the aesthetics you live in Wyoming for, that you are helpless. With the state legislature setting; call, write and e-mail your legislators. Write to state officials and join groups that support your interests. Write a column or letter to the editor of your local newspaper and spread your opinion to your friends and neighbors.
BOB LAYBOURN, Cheyenne |
