The Alaska Department of Natural Resources photo at right shows a crew drilling a coal bed methane well in the MatSu Valley. Current state law allows the leaseholder to conduct such an operation on private residential property, without the owner's consent. There are no required minimum setbacks from homes.
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What happens when this scene is repeated thousands of times? Click here.

Diagrams like the one at right have been shown by drilling company representatives and state officials (or sometimes both were the same person ) at various public meetings in the MatSu Valley. These generic diagrams depict a CBM well operating in nicely defined, horizontal subsurface layers. These layers, we are told, will keep everything where it belongs, drinking water safe from methane, re-injected water will never reappear elsewhere, and so on.
 
Scroll down to see some diagrams depicting the actual subsurface geology and hydrology in the MatSu Valley.

The three images at right and below are courtesy of Mark Clark, Soil Scientist, Palmer, Alaska. They are part of a presentation given at the Coal Bed Methane Summit in Wasilla, Alaska in fall of 2003. You may view all of the slides in this presentation here. (The slideshow will open in a new window. Close that window to return here.)

The actual subsurface layers in the valley are neither horizontal nor simplistic. The layers are sharply tilted and complex. Water and gas both can travel great distances, vertically as well as horizontally. Methane gas is held in place in the layers by overlying water, the removal of which is the basis for CBM production.

Into this complex structure, the CBM industry is planning to drill de-watering wells to extract methane. How much water will be withdrawn? Each well is expected to draw 5 to 20 gallons per minute, or on average, about 17 thousand gallons per day, per well. How many wells? No one can say for sure, but a look at the industry in the lower 48 is instructive. According to the website of Evergreen Resources, which holds leases on about 300,000 acres of MatSu Valley land, their operations on a similar acreage in the Raton Basin of Colorado "currently operate more than 1,000 wells." and "have only developed about 55% to 65% of our acreage base." And the coal seams in the MatSu Valley are believed to be far richer than those in Colorado.
 
The industry contends that the drilling of thousands of wells in residential areas and removal and disposal of billions of gallons of water from the aquifers will not cause any problems for local residents. What do you think?