Methane gas can be found wherever coal is found. Coal bed methane is held on the surface of the coal by water pressure. To release the methane, developers drill down to underground coal seam aquifers. Then the water is pumped to the surface. This lowers the water table and releases methane gas. The methane rises to the surface and is collected and piped to compressor stations, where it is compressed and shipped to market.

It was at the end of the 1990s that coal bed methane drilling came to Montana, and the Montana Board of Oil and Gas Conservation began issuing permits without requiring any environmental studies. In 2000, Northern Plains was forced to sue the Board of Oil and Gas Conservation to get the state to conduct environmental studies before granting new permits for coal bed methane drilling.

Salty Water Discharges

Irresponsible development of methane brings substantial risks to Montana’s agricultural economy. The billions of gallons of water drawn out of our aquifers for methane extraction 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.

Irrigators who have relied on river water for generations now risked ruining their crops, for sodium-laced water can destroy soil structure, rendering it sterile and inhospitable for plant life. In 2003, Northern Plains members began pressing the state of Montana to adopt numeric water quality standards for streams affected by coal bed methane discharges. Standards were adopted in 2006, but with key exceptions for methane companies. Those standards were attacked in court multiple times by the methane industry but the standards, as well as the science behind them, were always upheld. Eventually, the Montana Supreme Court ruled that dumping untreated water from methane wells was flatly illegal.

Surface Impacts

The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for Montana coal bed methane development – which was conducted because of Northern Plains’ 2000 lawsuit, predicted:

  • 9,000 miles of new roads;
  • 28,000 miles of new power lines and pipeline corridors;
  • 4,000 high sodium wastewater impoundments;
  • 70,000 acres of disturbed land;
  • Up to 4.7 million acres of impacted wildlife habitat;
  • 600-foot aquifer drawdown across the Powder River Basin, with recharge not expected until several decades after drilling ends.
  • The EIS estimated as many as 26,000 wells will be drilled in Montana’s portion of the Powder River Basin over a twenty-year period.

Split estate problems

More than half of the methane in Montana is owned by the federal government and the majority of the federal methane underlies private property. Federal land management policies give the preponderant rights to parties who own mineral rights, and landowners are left with decades of industrial development on their land, accompanied by depleted aquifers, damage to the land surface, and operational difficulties like open gates, bisected pastures, etc.

Depleted aquifers

The high-volume discharges of groundwater also deplete precious aquifers that feed seeps and springs. These seeps and springs are crucial for watering livestock, in addition to providing water for wildlife. The likely damage to aquifers will be widespread, intense, and long-lasting.

A study Northern Plains commissioned on coal bed methane’s impacts to aquifers was peer-reviewed and published in the March 2009 Journal of Hydrology (“Groundwater management and coal bed methane development in the Powder River Basin of Montana,” Tom Myers, Ph.D.,Journal of Hydrology, March 2009). The model developed in the study verified the existing conditions in the aquifers and predicted that aquifer drawdown could exceed 290 feet in the middle of the methane fields with nearly 20-foot drawdowns extending 46 miles from the methane fields. Groundwater depletion will affect river flows in the region by depleting groundwater discharge and natural recharge of the rivers. The drawdown will also affect hundreds of wells and natural springs, important sources of domestic and stock water for residents of this area, as well as wildlife. After methane development ceases, recovery of the aquifers will take up to 50 years, and as long as 200 years for full recovery.

Protecting water rights

We remain in a battle over water rights and the threat of privatizing groundwater. In an attempt to evade Montana’s water quality standards, a methane company applied for water right permits for their coal bed methane discharge water, which would have allowed them to transport and sell some of this water out-of-state. Had they succeeded, it would have upended the legal concepts – prior appropriation and beneficial use – that have governed water rights in the West for well over a century.

The legal principle advanced by the industry has been that the water in their pipelines originated in the pipes rather than in the aquifer. Northern Plains defeated that principle in state court in 2008, but the methane industry immediately mounted an attack in the Montana legislature, attempting in two separate bills to redefine water rights in the same absurd fashion. Neither bill was enacted, but that was the result only because of determined citizen involvement and, in one case, a gubernatorial veto.

Doing It Right

Northern Plains has taken the lead in ensuring coal bed methane is developed responsibly in Montana. Drawing on the insights of scientific and technical experts, along with farmers, ranchers, sportsmen, and other concerned citizens, Northern Plains developed a groundbreaking report–Doing It Right: A Blueprint for Responsible Coal Bed Methane Development in Montana. Northern Plains ongoing Doing It Rightcampaign builds this report, holding the coal bed methane industry accountable and educating the public.

Our Doing It Right campaign aims to protect our water quality, family-sized farms and ranches, wildlife resources, and local communities from irresponsible coal bed methane development. This campaign intends to realize the following goals:

  • Enforcement of existing laws and monitoring of coal bed methane development.
  • A requirement than methane operators get permission from surface owners before beginning drilling operations; surface use agreements so that landowners can have a say in the course of development on their land, and reimbursement of attorney fees to landowners who prove damages to their property so that the cost of litigating doesn’t deter them from seeking just compensation.
  • The use of best available technologies such as aquifer recharge, clustered development, and mufflers for compressor stations to reduce the footprint of methane development on our productive agricultural land, rural communities, water resources, and wildlife.
  • The collection of thorough fish, wildlife, and plant inventories before development proceeds, followed by phased-in development over time to diffuse impacts and allow public agencies with the time to address problems as they come up.
  • Meaningful public involvement in the decision-making process; public agencies need to make every effort to include the public in the decision-making process.
  • Full reclamation and adequate bonding in order to protect Montana taxpayers from liability for cleanup costs after the methane industry is gone.
  • Unfortunately, we were forced to take courtroom action several times because state and federal enforcement of existing laws was so poor. Getting the state to conduct environmental studies was just the first. In other court cases, we:
  • Prevented the federal Bureau of Land Management from taking shortcuts on its EIS;
  • Ensured that citizens have the right to appeal DEQ decisions on permits;
  • Established that discharge water from methane wells is indeed a pollutant under the federal Clean Water Act, that such discharges must have a discharge permit, and that the state cannot create exemptions to the Clean Water Act;
  • Required a methane driller to remove several illegal impoundments and get permits for the remaining impoundments;
  • Intervened to help the Northern Cheyenne Tribe’s case against the dumping of untreated discharge water, which the Tribe won unanimously in the Montana Supreme Court;
  • Intervened to defend the water quality standards that our rulemaking petition several years earlier had established. Those standards, and the science behind them, have been upheld in every court decision;
  • Outlawed the water-wasting practice of using evaporation pits to get rid of discharge water;
  • Established under the law that water which comes out of the ground is indeed ground water. This ruling protects the right of senior water rights holders to object to a methane company’s application for water rights, and upholds the principles of prior appropriation and beneficial use that are fundamental to Western water law.

For more information

Read Dr. Tom Myers peer-reviewed study of the effects of coal bed methane development on aquifers in the Powder River Basin of Montana. His report was published in the March 2009 issue of Journal of Hydrology.

Doing It Right: A Blueprint for Responsible Coal Bed Methane Development in Montana