Coal Bed Methane Development: Protecting Clean Water and Senior Water Rights

The production of coal bed methane (CBM) requires pumping vast quantities of water in order to release the gas for recovery.  The billions of gallons of water drawn out of our aquifers are generally suitable for drinking and watering livestock, but are consistently unsafe for crops and soils in Montana due to high levels of sodium and other salts and are considered a pollutant under the Clean Water Act.

Currently the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) has water quality standards for the discharge of CBM groundwater, but even so, rising sodium levels in the Tongue River have already caused problems for downstream irrigators.  

Additionally, landowner's springs and wells in the area of CBM development can go dry causing senior water rights holders to lose their wells.  Under current law, the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation (BOGC) permits coal bed methane wells without involving the main agency that deals with water rights, the DNRC.

CBM companies consider this groundwater to be a waste product and they seek the easiest, cheapest way to get rid of the water. But the bottom line for landowners is that this water stays in the ground where senior water rights holders can use it and irrigators can avoid being damaged by the salts in it.

Learn more, Northern Plains Resource Council, http://northernplains.org/factsheets/CBM%202008%20factsheet_FNL1.pdf.