Norton Wants Wyo. Drilling Permits Tripled

Associated Press ^ | 1/22/04 | JUDITH KOHLER

[lasereye]

DENVER (AP) - Interior Secretary Gale Norton said Wednesday that her agency wants to triple the number of drilling permits approved in Wyoming's natural gas fields to help meet the nation's growing energy needs.

Wyoming, Colorado and other Rocky Mountain states make up one of the country's two major accessible gas reserves, Norton said in an interview with The Associated Press following an energy conference.

"Natural gas is a major energy need for the country. The demand for natural gas is expected to far outstrip the production," Norton said.

The Bush administration is pushing for speedier approval of permits to drill for gas on federal land in the Rockies. Companies have complained that it takes up to three times as long to process permits on federal land than on private or state property.

Norton said her agency's goal is to increase to 3,000 from about 1,000 the number of permits approved annually on Bureau of Land Management land in Wyoming's Powder River Basin.

The northeastern Wyoming basin contains vast deposits of coal bed methane gas, which requires pumping ground water to release the natural gas trapped in coal seams.

Jill Morrison of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, a Sheridan, Wyo.-based conservation group, said residents will watch to see how the bureau handles the increase in permits. She contends the bureau isn't doing the kind of analysis needed to determine the cumulative impacts of drilling on a broad scale.

Residents have complained about water wells going dry because of pumping on neighboring property, she said. She also called bonds required to cover cleanup costs "woefully minimal."

"There is going to be a huge taxpayer liability here for the cost of cleanup and reclamation that the government hasn't even begun to account for," Morrison said.

[Roughneck]

Residents have complained about water wells going dry because of pumping on neighboring property, she said. She also called bonds required to cover cleanup costs "woefully minimal."

"There is going to be a huge taxpayer liability here for the cost of cleanup and reclamation that the government hasn't even begun to account for," Morrison said.



Drilling for natural gas or crude does not "dry up" water wells.

And requiring drillers to pay huge reclamation/clean up fees "JUST IN CASE" of an accident, is crippling the energy industry at a time when we can ill afford the dependance we now have on foreign oil.

I believe homeland security outweighs alarmists concerns given by folks who know absolutely NOTHING about the oil industry and the technical advancements of he industry.

These people think you poke a hole in the ground and oil flows out of it like on "The Beverly Hillbillies", the uninformed really need to get a grip...

[BOBTHENAILER]

She contends the bureau isn't doing the kind of analysis needed to determine the cumulative impacts of drilling on a broad scale.

She, obviously, has not bothered to read the second massive EIS (Environmental Impact Study) conducted by the BLM after enviro-lawsuits forced a second one to be performed, taking some three years and enclosed in two huge volumes.

You're exactly right, these knee-jerk enviros know absolutely nothing about the oil & gas business. Their lawsuits have done more than anything to stall drilling and drive up the price of natural gas.

[Grampa Dave]

This Enviral Watermelon Jihadists has fought 24/7 to prevent any fuel from being removed in Wyoming.

Go to this search to view her long time activities against evil Americans wanting to use coal or natural gas.


http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Jill+Morrison+of+the+Powder+River+Basin+Resource+Council&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

[BOBTHENAILER]

What a truly despicable list of misdeeds and vile connections.

[Grampa Dave]

I think that you and your friends can use that list to predict what she will do in the future and now.

[50sDad]

Again: EARTH FIRST! Then we make MARS our B!tch!

[Grampa Dave]

Great tag line!:)

[farmfriend]

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

---

If this is taxes with reprsentation
Give me taxes without representation
I much prefer a tax on tea!
Instead of everything else.

[SAJ]

Spot on, mate. This IS a homeland security issue, front burner. Development of the Overthrust and similar areas is absolutely essential, and its time and past time that the Feds get off the dime and send this watermelon b*tch and her buddies packing.

Now, if we could just inject some spine into Jeb Bush and open up the Florida Gulf fields...

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[BOBTHENAILER]

Indeed we can and thanks for the list. I'm gonna email it to all my WY buds.

[talleyman]

Great link - thanks!

[Grampa Dave]

The session with Moyer on PBS tells you where this watermelon babe is coming from.

The new search program on Yahoo.com is really great. If you have a person or the name of a lib that bugging you, just do a regular search first. If that fails do an advanced search.

Often you will have an electronic trail over the years of these people. That trail can often be very revealing.

Bob the Nailer, just a word of warning, if you and your friends decide to use this data. You need to save all of the stuff, (the whole article) on a server that she can't get too.

I found out in the Oregon fires that data which showed the the footprints and fingerprints of the envirals in Oregon in setting up the forest fires would often disappear after I posted the links to FR.

[Dog Gone]

While it's true that it's often necessary to de-water the coal beds in order to produce the methane in them, that should have zero effect on any landowner's water wells, unless they were crazy enough to have drilled and completed their wells in the coalbed formation.

If they had done that, their water wells would be fizzing natural gas and the well pump probably would have sparked an explosion long ago.

[BOBTHENAILER]

You need to save all of the stuff, (the whole article) on a server that she can't get too.

Good advice, we'll do just that.

[razorback-bert]

Those fools would think they have struck Perrier.

[CedarDave]

If they had done that, their water wells would be fizzing natural gas and the well pump probably would have sparked an explosion long ago.

That's not unheard of in the San Juan Basin where water wells can be completed in formations with coal stringers. The basic problem is that the environmentalists play on the ranchers/homeowners fears. To the average person, the water sits in a big bowl and they see the pumping as impacting their well (sort of like two persons sucking a milkshake through two straws). In reality the water zones are unlikely to be directly connected, or connected to such an extent so as not to transmit sizable quantities of water. Thus their wells would be unaffected as far as water drawdown is concerned.

Of greater concern, and I have had personal experience in this area, is the release of gas to upper formation zones, including drinking water aquifers, through artificial penetrations (poorly plugged exploration drillholes, oil/gas wells to deeper formations with poor cement jobs, cathodic protection wells, etc.). The gas released in the dewatered formation will migrate to any permeable zone, natural or man-made, and make it's way to a lesser pressurized zone.

Therefore, given the conditions outlined above, a homeowner with a water well could find himself with fizzing water some day that may ignite if not properly vented. Therefore it is important to identify any of these possible avenues of gas migration before production and take steps to eliminate or mitigate potential consequences, including possibility of explosive gas buildup.

[sarasmom]

The problem is, many people believe technology is magic.
I dont understand how electricity is produced.I know it is harnessed and delivered to my home and business.I pay for it.I see power plants and power trucks, and I was once married to a man that worked directly in the field of electricity.
To me, electricity is not magic.I know it takes a huge infra-structure to generate, distribute and maintain electrical power to my wall plugs.I dont think about it every day, but I learned enough through osmosis to know it is complicated, and the men and women who work in the electrical fields know quite a bit more than I do about how it works.I would be stupid to tell them to stop doing something, before I asked them why they needed to do it.
It is appropriate to question their actions,but if one has no knowledge of electric production and distribution at all, any answers they gave would be a futile waste of time.
I know nothing about natural gas production and distribution.
I do know it is not magic.
I wonder how many "environmentalists" believe power production is magic?
I do believe in magic.
Magic is totally unrelated to physics,pipes,trucks,equipment,cables, man hours, and billing departments.