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Phillips pulls plan to send coalbed methane water to Cheyenne Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality had told company it would not approve project because of concerns on downstream irrigation by The Associated Press
Because of concerns raised by environmental regulators, Phillips Petroleum Co. has withdrawn an application to send discharged coalbed methane water from the Powder River Basin to the Cheyenne River system.
“We met with them last Thursday and explained to them, based on the public comments that we received on their application and our re-analysis of some of their assumptions, that we were not in the position to approve the project,” said Gary Beach, administrator of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Water Quality Division.
“The primary concerns were the (sodium adsorption ratio) in Antelope Creek and the effect on downstream irrigation,” Beach said Dec. 17.
The sodium adsorption ratio is a measure of the degree to which sodium will accumulate in soil irrigated with the water. Water with high ratios can kill plants.
Because new discharges into the Powder River have been limited by a discharge water quality agreement between Wyoming and Montana, Phillips was seeking to gather water from between 2,000 and 2,500 methane wells in the Powder River Basin.
The water would be transported by pipeline to a reservoir system in northern Converse County, partially treated and then sent into Antelope Creek, a tributary of the Cheyenne River.
The proposal sought permission to discharge up to 32.3 million gallons a day. About 6,500 acres of irrigation water rights could have been affected downstream.
The Phillips plan would have called for a greater volume of water discharged at almost twice the normal sodium adsorption ratio the DEQ normally approves, Beach said.
The quantity of water was another consideration, he said.
“As you add more and more coal bed methane water to the Cheyenne River, it starts looking more and more like coal bed methane water,” he said.
Phillips will rework application Stephen de Albuquerque, a health, environment, safety and regulatory affairs supervisor with Phillips, said the company has not abandoned the plan. He said critics have not thoroughly examined the potential benefits to wildlife, especially on habitat for waterfowl and deer.
“The bottom line is that we spent a lot of time and effort designing a system that we felt would not have a lot of negative impact on landowners,” he said.
He said Phillips plans to rework the application to demonstrate that the addition of coalbed methane water would not adversely affect irrigation because it would seep into shallow sand aquifers.
“Quite frankly, they are never going to see that water because we assumed zero infiltration,” he said.
Conservation groups pleased Conservation groups and landowners were pleased with Phillips’ withdrawal of the application.
“This project was fraught with problems from the beginning and the people along the Cheyenne River were quite upset about it,” said Cheryl Phinney of the Powder River Basin Resource Council.
“Phillips did try to fix the proposal, but I just don’t think you can take coalbed methane water and put it in the river and expect it to work.”
Donna Ruffing, a Niobrara County commissioner, said her constituents were “extremely pleased.”
“But I don’t think it’s the end of it,” she said. “We still have coalbed methane water being discharged into the Cheyenne River tributaries and no one has a clue as to what that quantity of water is.”
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