Western Organization of Resource Councils
2401 Montana Avenue, #301
Billings, Montana 59101
406.252.9672 • billings@worc.org
Rancher Encourages Responsible Energy Development Policies
Testimony describes loss of health, water, land, and money
in 5-year struggle with coalbed methane developers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, March 24, 2004
Washington DC - A Wyoming rancher today urged members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to take decisive leadership and require the responsible development of oil and gas resources in the West during a hearing on the environmental impacts of U.S. natural gas supply.
Marjorie West asked the committee to require companies to negotiate surface use and damage agreements with landowners, to increase bonds to ensure adequate reclamation of the land, and to protect taxpayers by requiring developers to clean up sites. West and her husband own a ranch on Spotted Horse Creek in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming,
“I am here to ask you not to further weaken environmental laws, nor to further assist industry in rushing carelessly forward to develop natural gas on our lands,” West said. “The current pace and direction of natural gas development in this country is resulting in serious damage to land and water resources and private property rights.”
She spoke on behalf of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a grassroots organization dedicated to good stewardship of Wyoming’s natural resources and the preservation of the state’s agricultural heritage, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils (WORC), a network of grassroots organizations from seven western states. Powder River is a member of WORC.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is seeking to develop 60,000 new coalbed methane wells in the Powder River Basin, an area in Wyoming and Montana equivalent in size to the state of Virginia. About 16,000 wells now exist in the basin. Additional gas and coalbed methane development is planned for Colorado, North Dakota, New Mexico, and other parts of the West.
In her testimony, West described the harm to her land, water resources, family, and neighbors from irresponsible coalbed methane development. Over the last five years, she has lost three artesian wells, a domestic water well, hay meadows, native vegetation, and over 200 old cottonwood trees to coalbed methane development, she said.
West said the struggle has contributed to health problems. “My husband, Bill, now takes high blood pressure medication and I take a prescription medication for severe headaches,” she said. “I cannot prove that the methane industry has caused these conditions, but it certainly has not helped.”
West said her efforts to address these problems have been largely futile. “We’ve spent thousand of dollars on legal fees trying to get the problems addressed,” she said. “Out of six companies, not one has lived up to its word or its agreement. These are not just small operators; several are large well established oil and gas companies.”
State and federal agencies have not helped either, West said. “Regulators let the damages occur and continue to permit activities that violate regulations,” she said. “Industry has been given license to destroy our property, our soil, our grass, our land, our creek, our solitude.”
West criticized the energy bill that is stalled in the Senate, S. 2095, for not providing needed protections and for weakening environmental and procedural safeguards.
“Congress can and should do better,” West said. “Natural gas development is important to the nation, and in appropriate places and under the right conditions can and should be developed for the benefit of the country. But it has to be balanced with protections for other resources – especially water – and other uses of the land involved.
“We require our coal mining industry in this country to live up to very high standards for permitting, bonding, landowner consent, water well replacement and many other things – we should expect nothing less of the oil and gas industry. They must be required to do it right.”