Fiery Lemonade and Other Water Woes

Carl Weston suspected methane gas was seeping into his water well. He was convinced when the lemonade caught fire.

“I realized the implications of it,” Weston said with a small laugh.

Weston is among a growing number of landowners across the West who face the consequences of oil and gas drilling on their property--drilling that sometimes occurs despite their objections.

Conflicts are growing as energy exploration and production booms at the same time as the region’s population.

“It used to be that gas and oil development just happened in the middle of nowhere. Well, now it happens in people’s backyards,” said Gwen Lachelt, executive director of the Durango-based Oil & Gas Accountability Project.

Some landowners don’t realize that someone else owns the rights to underground minerals until they get a call from a company ready to drill for oil or gas. In some cases, the former landowners sold the mineral rights or the government owns or leases the rights.

States typically require companies to negotiate agreements with landowners and have rules on the siting of wells and restoration of disturbed land.

But critics argue the rules aren’t strong enough. If companies are refused access to the land, they can post a bond to cover the damages and start drilling.

In Colorado, 35% of the mineral rights are severed from the surface rights. Twelve percent of the landowners had agreements with oil and gas developers when the permits were issued, and 23% didn’t, said Rich Griebling, director of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission. Some parties reached agreement later.

So far, no producers in Wyoming have started drilling over a landowner’s objection, said Don Likwartz, supervisor of the state commission.

“That wouldn’t play very well in the press. They just wouldn’t want to do that. They would rather reach some kind of agreement,” he said.

Mac and Ron Burkett have agreements with the companies operating 21 gas wells on their 4,200-acre cattle ranch 12 miles east of Durango. They cope with most of the activity, but say the dust from the traffic and noise gets bothersome. Sometimes people don’t latch the gates, and the cattle get out. And one of their artesian wells dried up because of oil and gas drilling.

“The thing that’s been my biggest problem is the lack of privacy,” Mrs. Burkett said.

A new Colorado law says title companies must notify land buyers that someone else owns the mineral rights and those rights are protected by law. But proposals to give surface owners more rights died in the Colorado and Wyoming legislatures this year.

Industry representatives acknowledge that few people want an oil or gas rig nearby unless they own the mineral rights and are reaping the royalties.

“People want their 35 acres of paradise, but don’t want pipelines or power lines,” said Greg Schnacke, executive vice president of the Colorado Oil & Gas Assn., a trade group.

During the last boom in the 1980s, gas from old wells that were improperly drilled or sealed migrated into homeowners’ water wells in southwestern Colorado.

Weston’s children made lemonade to mask the taste of the water at their home 19 miles south of Durango.

“They were using dry lemonade mix, and putting sugar and water in it around the stove, and it flared the lemonade,” Weston said.

The family began using bottled drinking water. A neighbor put in a filtration system.

Several families in southwestern Colorado and northern New Mexico sued gas producers in the 1990s, claiming the drilling contaminated their water wells. Some Colorado landowners settled their claims out of court when the lawsuit became embroiled in a jurisdictional dispute.

Weston, a retired Internal Revenue Service employee, said many energy companies are more responsible now and the state does a better job of overseeing the industry, but there are still problems.

In northeastern Wyoming, there are similar concerns about drilling and water quality. The Powder River Basin contains a huge reserve of coalbed methane gas, and the drilling produces large quantities of excess water.

Methane gas was long considered a liability in coal mining because of its volatility. It became a sought-after commodity when companies began tapping the gas as a fuel source.

Pumping ground water relieves the pressure that traps the methane gas in the coal seams. The wells pump an average of 11 gallons of water a minute, although some pump up to 100 gallons a minute.

The water, discharged into streams and rivers, contains a lot of sodium. It can be used for drinking, but not irrigation.

“It’s so misleading. You and I can drink the water till we’re blue in the face, but you can’t irrigate with it,” said Roger Muggli, a Miles City, Mont.-area farmer and manager of the Tongue and Yellowstone Irrigation District.

“Industry gets the politicians out there and gives them a big glass of coalbed methane water to gulp down. When their hair didn’t change color and they didn’t fall over dead, people think there must not be anything wrong with it.”

A.D. Ackels worries about how much water will be left when the gas is gone. Already, some ranchers say their wells have gone dry.

“It’s kind of a gold-rush mentality,” said Ackels, who farms just east of Sheridan, Wyo. “A quarter of a century from now, the gas will be gone and the water will gone.”