The end is nigh!

[cowman]

Well 300 meters is pretty far? Do you want them to move a mile away or what?
Come on we have to have some realism here?
I had, this fall...a CBM well drilled within 150 meters from my springs? They did all the tests, they drilled the well, they fracced it, they flared it and NO PROBLEM! I know you "enviros" don't like to hear that but I was quite satisfied with the precautions the company took?
But then again I don't buy into all the fearmongering and lies some of the wingdings take?...try listening to someone besides the kooks?
And guess what....the springs are flowing...as good as always...and the gas is flowing?
Don't worry...these guys have it under control despite your paranoid thoughts! Its going to be alright. Take a valium.

[coppertop]

cowman who were you directing your message to ? I think you were a wee bit nasty, Linda has every right to expect the company to communicate with her.
As for me, I am hardly an 'envrio' living in the heart of the oil patch. I am concerned with sour wells being drilled in close proximity to densly popluated areas, because I have lived through a couple of major blowouts in this area and know the health problems both humans and animals experienced during those wrecks.

As far as taking a valium goes, no thanks, I would much rather tackle issues head on, no need to have a drug induced calm when I need to state my case.

Hopefully you aren't going to be grumpy all through the HOLIDAYS....remember SANTA is watching you !!! LOL

[cakadu]

Cowman, you are quite right - I would prefer that they go far away from me - but that is absolutely not the reality. Whilst you might be prepared to take those risks not all of us are. Quite often we do not know of the consequences right away either. But hey, it is your water and you can risk it. Me, I'm not so interested in doing it. I also don't want to see my development potential - should I wish to exercise that option - be limited or completely taken away from me.

Being labelled isn't so great either. I am quite like copper, I'll handle my battles head on thank you, without judgments and/or name calling but with logic and facts.

When I talk about communicating, I'll give you just one example of how the company's agent is presumably communicating with us.

I will quote exactly from the FORM letter - yes, that is what it is a form letter and our name and address does not even appear on it. "...if you do not respond on or before at least 15 days from the date of this letter....." Tells me nothing and quite often the form letter is dated one date and it is not posted for sometimes a week or more from the time the letter is photocopied.

If you were trying to do that from a legal standpoint it would be a joke.

Personally, I live by the credo that I am just here borrowing what is here, it is not mine to exploit as I feel fit to. I won't apologize for trying to leave this place in at least as good a shape as I found it, if not better.

Now, would you like one lump of coal or two?

[cakadu]

I should also point out, cowman, that I have no idea to whom you are referring when you say listening to the wing dings and/or kooks?

Rather than dismissing them entirely, I sometimes think that these type of folks do make some good points, just as the "full steam ahead" folks do.

We all take the information we are given and process it in a way that makes sense to us. What a boring world it would be if we all thought the same.

[coppertop]

Interestingly enough there is a column in today's Edmonton Journal calling for a moratorium on CBM drilling. The article is written by the NDP Environment critic, and he feels that concerns about the enviromnent;water safety,noise pollution,land use and property rights must be addressed before further development proceeds.

Now, I am not NDP, but I do agree with his notion that a proper management framework needs to be in place.
If we look back on the development of various oil and gas fields in Alberta, and realize that the Environmental Enhancement and Protection Act only came into effect in the 1980's, we can see that there has already been significant development without appropriate regard for the enviromnent....do we want to regress or do we want to see CBM developed in an sustainable manner.

[cakadu]

The real concern we have out here when it comes to water is the fact that for the better part of the last 100 years, the surface water has been drained away thanks to the some 160 miles of drainage ditch out this way.

It's pretty simple hydrology really, no surface water, not much chance of groundwater being able to recharge to any degree, if at all. Hence the significant problems with finding enough water to satisfy household needs let alone anything else.

What water is around needs to be protected to some degree not only for present needs, but future needs as well.

I have some difficulty understanding how having a plan to do all this drilling is misconstrued as wanting to shut it all down. There isn't a cause and effect relationship here.

[cowman]

I do understand that your area, Linda, has a few pretty "tough companies"? One guy told me they don't mess around...talk to you once and apply for a "Right of Entry"...which the surface rights board quickly rubberstamps!
CBM wells are still basically 4 to a quarter? I assume you have both heard of the two pilot projects, one in Mountain View county and one in RD county. One township in each will be subject to "intense developement"...64 wells per section? 27-35-w4 in Red Deer County! The EUB had an info night about two weeks ago at a local hall? Un-fortunately I couldn't attend but got some of the low down from the neighbor.
4 wells per pad and pipelines in a grid pattern. If it makes sense economically this eventually could become the norm!
I think the better rules on casing the wells far below the aquifier and the better fraccing rules pretty well addresses the water problem? They know a lot more about how the coal seam fracs than they did 4 years ago?
I think we have to be realistic here. The companies need to get their product out of the ground and the government of Alberta through the EUB...is going to make sure they do?
I'd be a lot more concerned about sour gas or the environmental problems at Fort Mac than coalbed methane? It really isn't the big boogeyman that certain people have portrayed it as.

[cowman]

Linda: One more thing.
When I was A boy my old man was an avid trout fisherman so every Sunday we'd hit the Clearwater, Swan Creek, Stony, Stauffer creek etc.? Driving through your area there were an awful lot of boggy farms that really were only good for poor pasture? Large drainage projects over the years have created some pretty darned decent farm land? One example would be just west of Spruceview?
I find it also interesting that there are some pretty impressive farms where once they were just tarpaper shacks and "stump farms"!
The land east of Rocky was like Dog Patch until a few enterprizing Dutch immigrants came in drained the land and taught the natives how to farm bog?
I do know there are areas close to where you live where water wells are very difficult to find, but one old timer told me it was always that way.

[cakadu]

It might be hard to find water around here EXCEPT for the quarter we're sitting on, which is why we will protect it as much as we can.

We weren't the ones that asked for the 300 meter setback - the EUB imposed it on them.

I don't think you can separate out and compartmentalize each of the actions i.e. Fort Mac, CBM etc. It will be a cumulative effect and we need to address it that way. All I can say is lord help us if that type of intensity on CBM becomes the norm. Quite frankly, I don't think we need anything that badly and certainly not without doing it in a sustainable manner.

The question I would pose is how do we know it isn't the boogeyman when we haven't had much of it before? Copper brings up a good point in that we didn't think we were doing too bad a few years ago either.

[cowman]

Linda: Well I would suggest to you that a lot of landowners don't see it that way?
If the government land use policy says they can't do anything with their land but farm it, and farming remains basically a breakeven deal, then they certainly might welcome 16 wells per quarter section? Depending on how well they did their homework, they might be getting surface rights for 16 wells? Now I would suggest in 27-35-w4 a surface right per well is around $2500? Sixteen times $2500 is $40,000...every year! The coalbed wells have a life expectancy of 30 to 40 years...at a recent surface rights meeting they suggested that might be as high as 80 years!
I think we are close to coming to a better deal on pipeline compensation? Some of the companies are even saying privately that something has to change? Several challenges to the status quo are working their way through the system! At one meeting I went to the Surface Rights representative said it is only a matter of time! How many thousands will pipelines add to the yearly rent?
However you look at it that sure beats growing barley or chasing cows around! And you have 4 little 10ft X 10ft exclosures on your land...and the rest you continue to farm! Or you could just lie back and let mother nature take it back and have a wildlife santuary! Maybe collect some "carbon credits"? Why we just might be the "landed gentry"!!!
At Joffre right now, they are installing equipment to collect CO2 for injection? Word has it that soon the Rimbey Gas plant will be doing the same thing? CO2 injection works and the future possibilities of "carbon credits" makes it a very,very viable option!
The solution to any problem is seldom "back to the past"? Technology and modern thinking can and probably will solve most of these problems. This save the farmland and stop all developement is usually coming from people who don't own any or have to make a living off it!