This week, the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution requesting the CBM plans be shelved until an international environmental assessment is completed.
The resolution, passed by the chamber's board Tuesday, raises concerns that British Columbia's gas well proposal "lacks sufficient study to proceed without risking impairment to the quality of water that flows into Montana."
The Basin Commission - members of which include top brass from various state and federal agencies - was created some two decades back, in response to another Canadian energy development threatening Montana water quality. That plan, to strip mine coal along Glacier's northern border, was killed after a review by the International Joint Commission.
The IJC - charged with resolving transboundary water disputes - recommended the Canadian coal mine be abandoned.
This spring, a similar coal mining plan was announced by Toronto-based Cline Mining Corp., but British Columbia's government refused to permit the venture amid outcry from Montana and Washington, D.C.
Part of that outcry included the Flathead Basin Commission resolution, which called for IJC review of both the coal mine proposal and British Columbia's plan to develop coal bed methane in the area.
Concerns south of the border now focus on CBM wastewater quality and quantity. The gas is found along underground coal seams, trapped there by a cap of groundwater. To release the gas, aquifers are dewatered.
In other gas fields, the water pumped up has proved a problem, often laced with salt and other impurities. It often varies from local waterways in both acidity and temperature, and the vast volumes tend to change stream flows.
British Columbia has proposed selling two CBM fields, one in the headwaters above Flathead Lake and one in the headwaters of the Kootenai River.
Already, Canadian energy giant Encana has drilled several test wells above the Kootenai, with a half-dozen still operating.
The water from those wells "is monitored very, very closely," said Les McDonald. "I would say the water is pretty much meeting the standards."
McDonald is a water quality specialist working for the province's Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection.
Currently, he said, the CBM wastewater is collected in a series of six tanks; the first three aerate the oxygen-deprived water, and the last three serve as settling tanks.
The aeration, he said, triggers a reaction that pulls out iron, which settles to the bottom of the final tanks. The water then flows through a carbon filter system.
It is then piped into a local stream.
Some, however, is collected for further testing, McDonald said, including a toxicity test for fish. McDonald said 10 rainbow trout are placed in a tank of wastewater for four days; if half or more die, the water fails the test.
Early in the process, he said, the wastewater regularly failed the test. Now, however, "substantially, Encana is passing the tests most of the time."
Water quality watchdogs, however, dismiss the test, saying four days is too limited a testing period. They are concerned about cumulative effects that add up over years, as a new aquatic chemistry is slowly absorbed into fish, insects, plants and soil.
Erin Sexton, who has written extensively about CBM development in southeastern British Columbia, also challenges McDonald's interpretation of Encana's test results. Quite often, she said, the wastewater fails the test, and all 10 fish die.
Nevertheless, that test and others are currently being used to draft "guidelines" for the province's CBM water. "
McDonald said he understands Montana's concerns, especially if critics reviewing environmental results in CBM fields like Wyoming's Powder River Basin.
"They made a ton of mistakes down there," he said. "I don't think we've done that up here."
But those passing resolutions south of the border aren't willing to take that on trust.
And any spectre of IJC involvement will likely affect the CBM auctions, especially after the recent experience of Cline Mining Corp.
Early this year, Cline announced it would try to "fast-track" coal mining operations in southeastern British Columbia, promising to drill exploration shafts before mid-June.
Stock shot up to more than 50 cents a share from a floor of less than a nickel when Cline announced the project already had undergone "detailed, exhaustive and careful environmental studies."
But then the U.S. State Department weighed in, saying the previous IJC decision on mining the area still applied.
On May 28, the head of the Ministry of Energy and Mines for British Columbia announced the province would not permit the mine, citing international environmental concerns.
Five days after that, Cline announced that a deal to raise $3.5 million in private stock placements had fallen through.
That same day, company stock plunged to 20 cents, down from a high of 54 cents a month before.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
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