[RonF]

Here's how this can work: Say I use water from a source that has a given amount of salinity in it to irrigate a property for agricultural purposes. Usually, what I'm doing is spreading that water around on the ground. Where does the water go? Where does the salt go? Some water is taken up by the plants involved. Some soaks down into the ground and will work its way down to the aquifier that is closest to the surface. Some runs off to whatever surface water depot may exist (lake, pond, river, stream, etc.). Finally, some will evaporate. This last is where you can end up with a problem. The salts in the water that evaporates is left behind in the ground it evaporated from. Under certain conditions, that salt will tend to build up. If it does, it will inhibit plant growth in the soil it builds up in, to the point that said soil will no longer support plant growth. Thus, even though the water as it comes from the source is able to support plant growth, the soil it's used in cannot. Now, whether this actually occurs or not is a function of a few different factors. These include, but are not limited to, the amount of dissolved minerals in that water, the type of minerals we're talking about, the soil composition (how permeable it is, for example), the amount of rain the area gets, how deep the aquifier is, how much sun they get, blah blah blah. For example, if there's little rain, the soil has a lot of clay (so that water doesn't percolate down though it too fast), it's very sunny and hot (so that a lot of the water evaporates), there's not a lot of rain at any time (which would flush salt out of the soil), etc., then you may have salt buildup in the soil, especially if a lot of fertilizer is being used. But what the relative situation is for all of these factors in the area in question is unknown to me. If the environmental groups are "cooking the books" by using misleading figures, then shame on them. If there's a good answer to the question they pose, then fine. But it's still a worthwhile question.

[edger]

Yeah, that's a good story too but has nothing to do with the first story.

And it is not a good question because the environmentalists are obstructionist, pure and simple, and don't give a rat's rump about any answer to their question.

[FReethesheeples]

Baucus is a dangerous demagogue & mindless troglydite.

It is simply unreasonable ignorance, earth worship (as in a pagan Gaia religion), & Al-Gorian superstition, or obsequious, fawning obeisance to the radical marxist enviro-wackos that would make Baucus take such a scientifically reactionary, ignorant and backward position against Coal Bed Methane exploration and development.

The water produced form many of our CBM well is actually measurably cleaner than "potable" (drinkable) water.

Unfortunately facts don't faze dotrinaire marxist e-wackos, whose emotional and/or cynically sinister anti-private-property & anti-private enterprise, often anti-human, and often anti-American political agenda utterly eclipses scientific, economic, and engineering data.

These are generally the very same enviro-wackos whose dangerously irresponsible opposition to prudent forest thinning has resulted in the record runaway fires in the West the last two summers & the loss of many millions of dollars of property!