Water Report: WYO Needs New Regulations
Friday, November 8, 2013
CLEARMONT, Wyo. – It all comes down to water.
That's the point of a new report from the Western Organization of Resource Councils that looks at oil and gas drilling impacts and regulations.
Spokesman Bob LaResche in Clearmont says there's an obvious need for more oversight because accidents happen frequently – with blowouts and oil pipeline spills documented in the report.
LaResche says many ranchers already have been left with the legacy of salt-leached fields connected to coal bed methane production.
"We, too, often feel that it's industry and government against the ranchers and the local citizens,” he says. “That's got to change. It can change."
The report recommends setting standards for well site construction, waste stream testing and disposal, along with comprehensive monitoring and testing of pipelines.
LaResche says production and exploration is ramping up again, even after more than 100,000 wells have been drilled in the state.
"Thousands of which are long forgotten, unlocatable, and still belching this and that,” he says, “and providing paths between our scarce aquifers of potable water."
LaResche says fracking horizontally, which reduces the footprint on the landscape, brings another set of concerns.
The process not only consumes billions of gallons of water, but also could punch into abandoned wells.
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