It is a strange fight, Montana ranchers say. Raising cattle here in the parched American outback of eastern Montana and Wyoming has always been a battle to find enough water. Mark Fix, a cattle rancher in eastern Montana, diverts about 2,000 gallons per minute of Tongue River water in the summer to grow hay for his livestock. But increased sodium in the water could endanger his hayfields.

Now there is more than enough water, but the wrong kind, they say, and they are fighting to keep it out of the river. Mark Fix is a family rancher whose cattle operation depends on water from the Tongue River. Mr. Fix diverts about 2,000 gallons per minute of clear water in the summer to transform a dry river bottom into several emerald green fields of alfalfa, an oasis on dry rangeland. Three crops of hay each year enable him to cut it, bale it and feed it to his cattle during the long winter. “Water means a guaranteed hay crop,” Mr. Fix said.

But the search for a type of natural gas called coal bed methane has come to this part of the world in a big way. The gas is found in subterranean coal, and companies are pumping water out of the coal and stripping the gas mixed with it. Once the gas is out, the huge volumes of water become waste in a region that gets less than 12 inches of rain a year. In some cases, the water has benefited ranchers, who use it to water their livestock. But there is far more than cows can drink, and it needs to be dumped.

The companies have been pumping the wastewater into drainages that flow into the Tongue River, as well as two other small rivers that flow north into Montana, the Powder and Little Powder Rivers. Ranchers say the water contains high levels of sodium and if it is spread on a field, it can destroy the ability to grow anything. “It makes the soil impervious,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer, who is a soil scientist. “It changes it from a living, breathing thing into concrete.” Ranchers like Mr. Fix say sodium in the water could render their hayfields unusable and drive them out of business. The companies say that sodium is not the problem ranchers have made it out to be and that the Montana environmental standards cannot be met without great difficulty. They have filed suit in federal and Montana court to overturn the regulations.

The fight pits Montana against Wyoming. Wyoming has thrown the door open to coal bed methane producers, with 20,000 wells in the basin. Wyoming says its water quality standards, while different from those in Montana, are more reasonable and still protect water quality. “Montana doesn t need to be concerned,” said John Wagner, administrator of the Wyoming Water Quality Division. “We have real tough limits put on these discharges.”

The energy companies agree with Wyoming. “There has been no documented impact to these drainages,” said David Searle, manager of governmental affairs for Marathon Oil, one of the companies that has methane wells in the region and is a party to the lawsuit. Montana’s regulations “are an overreaction and they are unnecessary,” Mr. Searle said. In some cases, he said, the standards are lower than background, or natural levels.

But Jill Morrison, a community organizer for the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a coalition of ranchers and environmentalists that has battled coal bed methane in Wyoming and has entered the lawsuit on Montana’s side, said ranchers should be worried. “Wyoming wants to think it is doing a good job, but that’s laughable,” Ms. Morrison said. “You can see the changes in the vegetation and the salt deposits in the soil,” when ranchers try to use wastewater.

She also said that the huge volume of water alone could be a problem. Some riparian areas have adapted to natural ephemeral flows. But coal bed methane discharges flood the normally dry streambeds year round, and have eliminated native grasses. Too much water, she said, has killed 100-year-old cottonwood and box elder trees. The problem has led to tension between two Democratic governors who are usually on friendlier terms. Last spring Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming asked the federal environmental protection administrator to appoint a mediator to settle the dispute. Governor Schweitzer chastised him, saying “nobody likes a tattletale to the teacher.” But producers in Wyoming are clearly worried new wells will stymie a growth industry.

“It will have an impact on some projects, there’s no doubt,” Mr. Searle said. Governor Freudenthal said the impact on development in his state could be serious. The problem, Governor Schweitzer said, is aggravated by Wyoming’s refusal to release water into Montana to water rights holders that are senior to some in Wyoming, because that state interprets a 1950 water compact differently.

Governor Schweitzer vowed to defend vigorously the state’s right to set environmental standards. Coal bed methane water needs to be treated before it is released, or reinjected into the ground in Wyoming, he said, something producers say is too expensive. He is not persuaded.
(Por Jim Robbins, The N.Y. Times, 10/09/2006)