Injecting the Unknown into Our Water

Almost two years ago, I walked into the Pondera County commissioner’s office on completely different business, only to find out that the springs on my ranch could become contaminated by a plan to inject the wastewater from sustainable jet fuel into old wells.

The people who wanted to inject unknown substances into porous ground under high pressure were just waiting for a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency before they got started.

They were already storing brown, stinky gunk in tanks near the wells, anticipating a slam dunk permit process.

The next spring, the EPA held a public hearing in Conrad. The high school auditorium was packed with objections, although people who would benefit financially from the wells supported the permit.

Since then, several organizations and some of my neighbors have been objecting to this plan.

Recently, the EPA announced another public meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 23, at 5:30 p.m. at the Conrad High School auditorium to hear what people think about this idea again.

I’m certainly not against capitalism, but I object to injecting wastewater into old wells because of so many uncertain consequences.

If contaminated wastewater makes it to my 16 springs, my ranch and my livelihood vanish as fast as salt dissolves into fresh, clean water.

First and foremost, nobody knows what is in the wastewater.

Montana Renewables, the company who owns the wastewater, has never allowed an independent sample to be taken – not the EPA, the Pondera County sanitarian or an objective third party.

Nobody except Montana Renewables knows which chemicals used to turn crops into jet fuel remain in that wastewater.

Nobody can assure me that contaminated wastewater won’t migrate to my springs because we just don’t have peer-reviewed science that measures local conditions.

We have a few computer models that are based on geology from the Bakken oil fields, but not from the Rocky Mountain Front, which is vastly different.

Studies done in 2010 and 2011 found the permeability and porosity would contain contamination, but they were later found to include faulty assumptions.

Some people discount the importance of migrating contamination because they say it is not economically feasible to pump drinking water from deep in the Madison where the wastewater would be injected.

Yet Stanford and other communities already pump drinking water from the Madison aquifer.

With all of the uncertain science, we just don’t know enough to be sure our drinking water will be protected forever.

Nobody knows why parts of the Madison aquifer hold oil and gas while other parts hold clean water.

Nobody knows how the various portions are connected.

Nobody knows whether geologic layers above the Madison aquifer will really isolate contamination from drinking water.

In other words, we don’t know for sure how water flows horizontally or vertically through the Madison, especially under high pressure.

The part of this issue that makes my head crazy is that there is a simple alternative to injecting wastewater under high pressure into a potential drinking water aquifer.

Instead, the water could be cleaned and used again.

Sustainably.

Montana Renewables has publicly committed to building a wastewater treatment facility instead of hauling the waste 70 miles one-way to old wells that sit near a lake that provides irrigation and drinking water for many communities.

In fact, the company has already received a taxpayer-funded low-interest loan guarantee from the federal government to pay for the treatment facility.

The technology to clean the water and reuse it already exists.

Logic suggests that this potential EPA permit is completely unnecessary.

I’m a gambler on a lot of aspects of life, but I won’t gamble on my water.

Once it is contaminated, clean water can’t come back.