How about sedimentation being considered a "pollutant"? It should be and streams should be listed under impaired watersheds by the DEQ because of it.
Oh, and while we're on the subject of water...what about how it relates to drilling the front and Coal Bed Methane Developement.
Coal Bed Methane (CBM) Extraction
Has Come to Montana
By Craig Sharpe, Executive Director
Montana Wildlife Federation
April/May 2002
Water
Water is the major by-product of the CBM extraction process. A single well may discharge from 12 to 20 gallons of water every minute (gpm) or approximately 17,000 to 28,000 gallons every day. When first drilled, up to 70 gpm may be withdrawn. Most distressing is that this water is pumped from subsurface groundwaters within the primary aquifers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Using conservative estimates of the number of potential wells in Montana, this could result in the withdrawal of at least 480 billion gallons of water.
Water is a requirement for all living things and in southeastern Montana, which receives less than 10 inches of moisture a year, it is a valuable and precious resource. The coal seams are the primary aquifers that hold the difference between life and death. Aquifers in this arid region, according to some reports, will take between 100-200 hundred years to recharge or refill if the water is withdrawn at predicted rates based on known coal volumes. For the agricultural community, the withdrawal could mean the loss of crop irrigation, springs and artesian wells, and domestic and stock watering wells. Many of these ranches have been reliant on the subsurface waters for 100 years and now they may lose it all. The natural carrying capacity of the land for plant communities, native flora, fauna, and subirrigated crops could also diminish. For local communities, the affects could be staggering.
CBM industry proponents claim that water discharged by the wells can be used for beneficial uses, but those uses are marginal at best. While marginally potable for humans and cattle, this water is unsuitable for crop irrigation, sustainable healthy fisheries, and even lawn watering. A major problem lies in elevated salinity or dissolved salts. Each CBM well produces about 20 tons of salt in a year. The polluted discharge water, or "product water," is deadly to many Montana native plants. Any use of the CBM wastewater on our landscapes will affect soil fertility. On some lands where CBM development has taken place, polluted waters are openly discharged on the surface on non-porous or clay soils, killing nearly every plant. Additionally, CBM discharged waters can contain high levels of arsenic, ammonia, boron, iron, manganese, radium, and fluoride. Discharged water high in sodium bicarbonates and other minerals is also incompatible with healthy fish populations.
The discharge of these waters into streams, rivers, coulees, irrigation ditches, and reservoirs, and onto surface soils, as is done at most operations, will adversely effect their ability to support a diversity of plant and aquatic life.
Requiring the discharged water to be held in holding facilities or containment ponds is one effort at mitigating environmental effects. However, most CBM development companies sight the increased cost of "lined" ponds as unreasonable. A danger with "unlined" ponds is that they can seep millions of gallons of high sodium water into nearby streams and rivers. Additionally, the question must be asked, "Who will clean up the pond after the site is no longer productive or are we creating another superfund site 10-20 years down the road?"
