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Microcap & Penny Stocks : RGBL.OB RG Global Lifestyles, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GC who wrote (281)	4/30/2008 8:18:30 AM
From: GC	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 337

Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:59 AM MDT GILLETTE (AP) -- Water discharged from coalbed methane drilling may be leaking from a Johnson County reservoir into area groundwater, state and federal officials say. The impact of any leak is likely tiny. The Skewed Reservoir holds just 15 acre-feet of discharge water, and is used primarily for research by Anadarko Petroleum and other agencies. Some, however, say the leak could be a sign of things to come for the thousands of similar discharge reservoirs dotting the Powder River Basin. "It may be something that's more endemic to all of these ponds," said John Wagner, administrator of the Department of Environmental Quality's Water Quality Division. "We don't want to overreact, but we also don't want to write it off as not being a problem either." In a letter dated March 12, the Bureau of Land Management said discharge water had leaked through about 15 feet of shale and coal below the reservoir and possibly penetrated underground aquifers. Wagner said his agency is collecting more information before it comes to any conclusions about the BLM findings. "We're trying to get all the facts together, trying to figure out whether or not what happened at that location is an indicator of what's happening on a broader scale throughout the basin," he said. A state water quality task force will assemble next week to review the facts and see if they indicate larger potential problems in the Powder River Basin, according to The News-Record of Gillette. That report is expected in by late summer or fall. Test results from monitoring wells indicate that water found beneath the reservoir contained elevated levels of electroconductivity and dissolved solids. Those are characteristics usually associated with coalbed methane discharge water. Anadarko officials contend the water was relatively pure when it was discharged, and could have been tainted by basin soil, which is naturally high in mineral content in some places. "There is some reasoning -- and we're doing further analysis -- that the soils beneath the reservoir contain an abundance of natural minerals," Anadarko spokesman Rick Robitaille said. "So there is reason to believe that some of these minerals may have been dissolved as the water percolated down to the strata beneath it." Anadarko believes the water may have leaked from a monitoring well casing, and has reduce discharges into the reservoir until it gets more information. The company has also asked the BLM to approve a pipeline that would shift the discharge to outfalls in Burger Draw in the meantime.