U.S. Water News Online
GILLETTE, Wyo. -- Anadarko Petroleum Corp. is spending more than $50 million to re-inject coal-bed methane water into an aquifer in northeast Wyoming.
Construction is set to begin on a 48-mile water pipeline from Anadarko's County Line field in eastern Johnson County to injection wells at the company's property near Midwest. The 2-foot diameter pipeline will inject the coal-bed methane water into the Madison aquifer.
Anadarko spokesman Rick Robitaille said the pipeline/injection system will take most of the company's coal-bed methane water from its most prolific field in the Powder River Basin and help solve its water management dilemma for many years to come.
Holding ponds and various water treatment and land application tools will always be a necessity, Robitaille said.
"It's an expensive process. But the plus side is we're storing the water should somebody want to use it in the future," Robitaille said.
The coal-bed methane gas industry pumps about 1.5 million barrels of water from underlying coals in the basin every day to free the gas for collection.
Some 300 coal-bed methane water injection wells have been authorized in Wyoming, most in the Powder River Basin, but only about one-third are in use, according to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Water Quality Division.
Environmental groups and surface owners have long advocated water re-injection as the best way to deal with the water, which can contain unwanted pollutants and chemicals.
But so far, Anadarko's is the only large-scale re-injection project in the basin.
"There are companies trying re-injection, but we're not seeing a lot of success," said Richard Zander, assistant field manager at the Bureau of Land Management Buffalo Field Office.
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