I Cogitate

Montana Pollution Rules Draw Federal Objections

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 9, 2006; A04

Federal energy officials are opposing new rules by Montana to force companies that extract methane gas from underground coal beds to clean up the water pollution caused by drilling operations, even as state officials cite an unreleased 2003 federal report that says cleanup costs are relatively inexpensive.

The Denver office of the Environmental Protection Agency produced the report but never published it, saying it related to a proposed drilling application that was dropped.

A Montana consulting firm obtained a copy of the EPA report, however, and handed it over to Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D). Last month, Montana's Board of Environmental Review, citing the EPA paper and other economic studies, voted to force coalbed methane companies to leave the state's streams as clean as they were before drilling started, although the companies do not have to clean up existing pollution.

"We want to develop energy in Montana, but we want to do it right," Schweitzer said in an interview. "Here's the bottom line with the federal government: They're usually not helpful, and they weren't this time, either."

...Mark Fix, a Montana rancher who chairs a community group that pushed for the state regulations, said the alfalfa crop on his 9,700-acre cattle ranch has suffered since gas companies started dumping water from drilling 100 miles upstream.

"If they dump too much water, it will just destroy our soils and destroy our crops," Fix said.

EPA and state officials who conducted analyses of what it would take to prevent more pollution agreed that the energy firms can afford to do it, though industry officials said it could hinder their operations.

The 2003 EPA draft report, obtained by The Washington Post from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Natural Resources News Service, which investigates environmental matters, said requiring companies to hold the contaminated water in storage ponds "would not have a major impact on production or any of the financial parameters measured by the economic model of any of the geographic regions investigated [Wyoming, Montana or Indian Country]." More expensive strategies include cleaning the water through reverse osmosis.

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