Coal bed gas exploration will proceed, minister says

By Scott Simpson
Vancouver Sun
December 11, 2008

Groups attack B.C. approval of southeast drilling

Calls for a moratorium on coal bed gas exploration in southeast B.C. were rejected Wednesday by Energy Minister Richard Neufeld.

Environmental groups, and the provincial New Democrats, are attacking the government for an announcement last week that while it's imposing a two-year moratorium on Shell Canada's coal bed gas drilling in northwest B.C., it is simultaneously allowing BP Canada to proceed with drilling in the southeast.

The northwest moratorium was praised, the southeast decision condemned.

Coal bed gas exploration is a fledgling industry in B.C., with potential to generate enormous resource royalty revenue for the province, but it poses a risk to drinking water and fish-bearing streams if not properly managed.

Neufeld said in an interview that the government has rules in place to safely address the risks, but critics aren't convinced.

NDP leader Carol James said in an interview that she's not opposed to coal bed gas development if it can be demonstrated that it poses no risk to the environment. But James said the government has failed to provide any proof that the environment can be protected.

The government said last week that it would allow BP to proceed with its Mist Mountain coal bed gas project in the East Kootenays, near Fernie -- but excluding the Flathead River drainage.

"The concern I heard from people up there is that they don't feel environmental issues had been considered, that neither the government nor the company has given them any kind of assurance that we are not going to see environmental damage," James said.

She said the moratorium in effect in the northwest, at Shell's Klappan coal gas project, should be imposed across B.C. -- including Mist Mountain in the Elk Valley drainage.

"The moratorium should apply across the board until the environmental issues are addressed and until someone could show that community. . . that things are going to be done properly, the moratorium should remain."

Casey Brennan, Southern Rockies and Flathead program manager for environmental group Wildsight, helped organize a rally Wednesday in Fernie where about 120 people gathered to protest the government's decision for their area. A similar rally this past summer attracted 300.

"It's too big an experiment on too big an area and it's going to put at risk the things we care about -- clean water, healthy wildlife populations, and a diverse economy growing in many ways other than just resource extraction," Brennan said.

He said the province has no knowledge of how drilling for gas would affect Elk Valley stream and ground-water resources.

"Their closest groundwater monitoring well is in Cranbrook. They have no baseline data for this area. We have no idea what the subsurface hydrogeology looks like here."

Neufeld, meanwhile, said the government-imposed conditions under which BP must operate -- including deep-well reinjection of water removed during coal bed gas exploration and production, already provide the measure of environmental protection the critics are seeking.

"They have to actually be allowed to drill a few wells, to find out what they are going into. If they can't meet the tough rules and regulations we have then we won't let them go ahead," Neufeld said.

"It's no different than conventional oil and gas. They don't exactly know what's below surface in some big area until they start drilling and find out what's there."

ssimpson@vancouversun.com

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