Ranchers Fear Environmental Harm in Methane Boom’s Wake

A blizzard suffocated half of Tom and Helen Jones’ cattle in the 1980s. The grasshoppers descended the next year. Then the Joneses had their share of financial problems, like all agriculture at the time.

But the trials were not too much if it meant clinging to the spread settled by Helen Jones’ great-grandfather in 1883 and bought by Tom Jones’ family in 1944.

Now the Joneses face an especially cruel twist for this arid prairie. More than 1,000 coal bed methane wells planned in the area could pump 80 million gallons of water to the surface every day, transforming a babbling brook on their ranch into a river about six times the water used by a city the size of Cheyenne, population 50,000.

“Sure, methane’s going to bring some money to some people,” Helen Jones said. “But at what cost?”

Gas companies, state and federal governments, and mineral-rights owners are eager to reap a sure financial windfall by tapping into the vast underground methane gas reserves in northeast Wyoming. But many of those who live on and work the land fear losing precious underground water reserves and seeing their land scarred by runoff and heavy equipment.

The Joneses own miles of dry sagebrush hills that cradle Dead Horse Creek, which meanders through a grove of cottonwoods. For now, the stream is barely more than a trickle that can be crossed with a running jump.

All told, the family has more land than some countries and runs more cattle than many Wyoming towns have people. They won’t say exactly how much because they dislike descriptions in terms of acres and head, except among kin.

In ranching, land is like money in the bank. A rancher studies the land like a stockbroker peruses price-to-earnings ratios: This draw should provide succulent grass come spring, that one a lifesaving windbreak come calving time.

Little did they know that some of their water wells, the ones that caught fire when a match was put to them, could also have told them what to expect.

Natural gas embedded in coal was once primarily an explosive hazard for underground miners. Then, a few years ago, it was discovered that pumping water from coal seams can also get the gas out cheaply.

A conservative estimate of the value of gas that will be produced is $75 million a year, not to mention what the thousands of unsunk wells and hundreds of miles of unbuilt pipelines will mean for the local construction industry.

Meanwhile, over fences and between pickup trucks, ranchers throughout the coal-rich Powder River Basin worry how their way of life and land will be affected.

Although many ranching families like the Joneses go back a century, only about half of the mineral rights in the basin are in private hands. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management auctions off the federal government’s mineral rights twice a month in Cheyenne.

The companies arrive ready to drill. The best many ranchers can hope for is fair compensation at a rate of $250-$2,500 per well and $2.50-$25 per rod, or 16.5 feet, for roads and pipelines. Annual compensation is also negotiated at a rate of 50% to 100% of the upfront payment.

Compensation for damage from water, which is supposed to be a side benefit in this arid country, is not guaranteed.

Some have already wrestled with methane water problems.

“Well, why don’t you just buy the ranch? Then you could ruin your own,” Earl Boardman said he told Michiwest Energy officials before the company sank methane wells on a neighboring state section where he runs his cattle.

Sure enough, he said, water from the 14 wells last summer gouged gaping gullies, created muddy cattle traps, killed his best grass and caused three of his water wells to run dry as the water table dropped.

He said Michiwest and state officials were indifferent to his plight. So one day the retired high school principal called the Mount Pleasant, Mich.-based company and said he was going for his gun.

The sheriff evacuated the methane workers, Michiwest’s president flew to Wyoming to negotiate and now Boardman has three new water wells compliments of the company. Michiwest is also addressing his other concerns, he said.

“From the landowner’s point of view, there are three things that are wrong,” he said. “Number one is the water loss, number two is the discharge, or erosion, and number three is the devaluation of property. And that just about spells the whole dang thing, however you want to say it.”

John Daly’s ranch northwest of Gillette could be the site of up to 1,100 coal bed methane wells. He wonders what will happen when the methane well water builds up over the winter and melts each spring.

But since Daly owns some of the mineral rights he can sympathize with gas developers.

“What I want to see, and I tell this to my rancher clients and the oil companies, let’s work with truthful facts on this. Let’s not cry wolf and let’s not cry profit,” he said.

“There are some areas where this development is a problem. There are some other areas where it’s a boon to everyone involved. It’s not a black and white situation.”

A self-described “anti-regulatory guy,” Daly said he thinks ranchers and gas companies should try to get along and keep government out of it if possible.

So far, the state is staying out.

The methane boom comes at a time when Wyoming’s state coffers suffer from a decline in other mineral industries. If projections for up to 15,000 coal bed methane wells come true, Wyoming will reap millions in royalties and taxes on production.

Neither the state Board of Control, which regulates surface water use, nor the State Engineer’s Office, which issues permits for water wells and water discharge permits for coal bed methane wells, is going to impose new rules for coal bed methane until a pattern of problems arises, said Mike Whitaker, a board superintendent.

“That’s the only approach we can take at this time. Unless we can go out and look at injury that is occurring, there is little that can be done,” he said.

The state Environmental Quality Council has approved less stringent surface water contamination rules for iron, manganese, barium and arsenic, at the request of coal bed methane companies.

There is no need for the standards to be so tough, said Water Quality Division Administrator Gary Beach, because no one drinks water from the Powder River, where most of the coal bed methane water ends up.

But waiting for problems to develop does not sit well with Robin Lorenzen, a Campbell County Conservation District board member. She is appealing a U.S. Bureau of Land Management study of how 5,000 methane wells could affect the basin. One of her main concerns is water wells drying up, as on Boardman’s ranch.

She contends state officials are turning a blind eye to the side effects of methane drilling.

“You do not have to be steeped in scientific knowledge if an entire area in a narrow frame of time suddenly has this massive epidemic of pumps having to be lowered 40 to 60 feet, of wells actually going dry, and there happen to be massive ground water withdrawals going on at the same time.

“But the standard rebuttal is, ‘Well, you don’t have proof.’ ”

Government agencies should at least consider requiring gas drillers to pump the water back underground, she said, regardless of the bite that would take out of profit margins.

Other ideas for what to do with all the water include building reservoirs, brewing beer, building a coal slurry pipeline to the Texas coast and raising trout. Different proposals seem to make headlines every week, although so far only a few ponds have been built for fish farming.

Daly is putting his money on fish farming, but he is skeptical about any one solution.

“In four or five reservoirs, I can raise all the trout anybody can eat,” he said.

But some resent the changes being brought upon their lives.

At the first mention of coal bed methane, Tom Jones--a bearded man who looks as if he could lug a calf on each shoulder--left the house to count heifers with his son.

The subject is an emotional one for them, Helen Jones said.

“He knows this place like you know your bathroom,” she said. “And he’s said he’ll die here. He’ll probably die fighting these methane gas guys.”