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PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts:
Washington, DC- A memo brought to light by Friends of the Earth represents irrefutable proof that Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior (DOI) J. Steven Griles violated recusal agreements in order to lobby on behalf of a company he formerly owned and from which he is not fully divested. The memo, on DOI letterhead to Deputy EPA Administrator Linda Fisher from Griles, asks EPA to work out their differences with DOI before EPA sends out *environmentally unsatisfactory* comments on a draft EIS for coal bed methane projects in the Powder River Basin. "It's not surprising that Griles flouted his recusal agreement in order to help out his former clients and friends in the mining industry," said Friends of the Earth Interior Department Watchdog, Kristen Sykes. "The Bush administration hired a fox to guard the henhouse--that's been their approach to environmental protection and enforcement since day one." In early April, the Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the draft environmental study for 51,000 coal bed methane (CBM) wells in the Powder River Basin and handed down its two worst rankings: "Environmentally Unsatisfactory" and a numeric ranking of "3," which requires the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to start over with a new environmental study. CBM is a major component of the Bush/Cheney National Energy Plan. The BLM is currently studying proposals for 80,000 CBM wells to be drilled in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming by 2010, making it the largest natural gas project ever considered by the agency. In response to EPA's comments, Deputy Secretary of Interior Griles, who lobbied for the methane industry as part of his work with J. Steven Griles and Associates and National Environmental Strategies, wrote a memo critical of the EPA's initial comments. The DOI also extended the comment deadline on the EIS in order to reconcile interagency differences. Coal bed methane (CBM) is natural gas trapped in subsurface coal deposits. The gas is typically trapped in between the coal deposit or seam and groundwater, thus preventing the methane gas from seeping to the surface. In order to access the trapped gas, drillers must "dewater" the gas well, which entails pumping significant amounts of water out of the well and onto the surface. For the 80,000 CBM wells expected in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana, the BLM predicts 4 trillion or more gallons of water will be thrust to the surface and wasted over the next 15 years. Wyoming will suffer multiple negative impacts from CBM extraction: additional power plants and 5,300 miles of overhead powerlines to run submersible water pumps for each well; 17,000 miles of new roads; 20,000 miles of pipelines; 200,000 acres of soil loss; and thousands of ruined reservoirs, contaminated by the slow bleed of CBM wastewater into the water table. The 8 million acre mixed-grass and rugged prairie of the Powder River Basin in Wyoming will, according to the BLM, be transformed into an industrial zone, dotted with hundreds of CBM compressor facilities. For more information on the Powder River Basin coal bed methane project visit: http://www.powderriverbasin.org |
