From: Arthur Caldicott
Subject: Coalbed methane forum draws crowd, heat
Date: March 11, 2003

The first of four coalbed methane workshops entitled "Poisoning Our Future?"
kicked off with a bang in Courtenay on Monday evening.  An estimated 120
people turned out to hear the two American guest presenters.

Gwen Lachelt is executive director of the Oil and Gas Accountability Project
of Colorado.  Jill Morrison is an organizer from Wyoming with the Powder
River Basin Resource Council.  The event was organized by Karen Campbell, a
staff lawyer at Westcoast Environmental Law in Vancouver.

Each is concerned with coalbed methane (CBM) activities, and have come
together for a four-stop tour of areas targeted for CBM development in
British Columbia.

Coalbed methane is a highly combustible gas (natural gas is mostly methane)
that can be extracted from coalfields.  Held in place by enormous
hydrostatic pressure, the production process requires many wells into the
coalbeds and extensive de-watering before commercial quantities of methane
can be produced.
Disposal of produced water is one of the most consequential results of CBM
development.  Extensive road and pipeline networks, thousands of wells,
hundreds of compressors - all of these direct impacts have profound
environmental consequences.

Lachelt said the people of the west face a common challenge in contending
with CBM exploitation.  She described some of the horror stories,
accompanied with projected slides of her own backyard, the San Juan Basin of
Colorado and New Mexico.

- contaminated wells, some of which have produced clean water for decades
suddenly dry up and start emitting combustible gas
- methane seeps into wells, and around drilling operations
- underground fires
- local aquifers corrupted
- streams and rivers flooded
- salt deposits replace natural vegetation along watercourses
- land subsidence from removal of sub-surface water
- toxic pits spread across the landscape
- incessant noise from drilling and compressors

She listed a number of "best practises" that the industry could follow to
reduce the impacts of what is fundamentally a very messy enterprise.  "You
shouldn't be worrying about the practises of an industry that can afford to
do it right from the start."

Jill Morrison, a resident of the Powder Basin in Wyoming, says there are
currently about 14,000 wells and projections for 51,000 in the Rocky
Mountain CBM producing areas.  Each well may produce 21 tons of salt a year
in the Powder Basin.  Landowners are beset with problems, in some cases
having good alfalfa and hay lands become no longer arable.  Ranchers stop
ranching, and find themselves fighting the industry and the government,
spending tens of thousands of dollars on lawyers and experts.  Property
values have dropped where CBM activities are underway, an average of 22%.

"Some people have made a lot of money off coalbed methane", Morrison said,
"but it has turned many lives upside down."

Karen Campbell ran quickly through a review of the steps the provincial
government have taken to facilitate CBM exploration and production in BC.
These include royalty incentives, relaxing of environmental assessment
requirements, removal of well-spacing limits for "experimental schemes",
changes to the Land Commission Act.

Highlights from questions from the audience, after the presentations, were
these:

Q. You entitled the workshops "Poisoning Our Future".  Why are you so
negative?
A. [paraphrased with great liberty] It is actually a question we were
asking, "Poisoning Our Future?".  It was intended to be provocative - this
room might have been much emptier tonight.  It was necessary, as well, to
hear from, and ask questions of the other side of the coalbed methane story.
Right now the only story being told in BC is from proponents and the
government.

Q. Have you been threatened with legal action for these workshops?
A. Yes

And that was the other dramatic story taking place during the evening.
Vassilopoulos and Williamson of Midland, Texas, is a company with interests
in CBM on Vancouver Island.  Spiro Vassilopoulos, the company's
spokesperson, attempted at the beginning of the meeting to bring in his own
camera operator to videotape the proceedings, with a view to legal
proceedings against the two American guests.

The meeting organizers refused Vassilopoulos permission.

When a reporter for the New VI showed up with his camera, Vassilopoulos
insisted that the VI reporter should not be allowed to record events either.
The organizers asked the VI reporter to turn his camera off, which he
consented to do after some discussion.

It was not a great moment for speech freedoms or press freedom.  It was a
very black episode for coalbed methane proponents.

After the meeting, the New VI reporter was back again, and managed to talk
to meeting organizers, Vassilopoulos, and others, this time on camera.

The next meeting is at the Vancouver Public Library, at 12:30 today,
Tuesday.  Should be good.  Get down there now!

[Disclaimer: the foregoing is as accurate as I am able to be, working from
memory and notes made at the meeting.  Please advise of any errors or
corrections.]

Arthur Caldicott
acaldicott@dogwoodinitiate.org