Monday, February 2, 2009

CBM Discharge and Storm Flows

I found the report on Water Resource Monitoring of Streams in the Coal Bed Methane Production Area of the Powder River Basin, Wyoming to be interesting since it analyzes coal bed methane (CBM) discharge during storm flows, and particularly during a period (2001-2006) of drought in the watershed areas investigated.

CBM is not a topic on which I have a broad knowledge, but it is important in the Wyoming and Montana areas as a source of energy. The environmental effects of CBM wells is of particular interest to an environmentally conscious population. I participated in storm sampling with the USGS during some particularly intense (for San Diego) storms and found it to be an interesting (and wet) study, but I wasn't able to delve into the subject since my main responsibility was ground-water sampling.

It's a fairly lengthy study, but the end result concludes that, in general, there is little effect from CBM discharges on storm flow chemistry, which agrees with much of the available information that states that CBM-discharged water has little effect on the environment into which it is discharged.

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