Colorado methane mystery by Silvia Szarkova

Walsenburg, farm town in Colorado, and its citizens are fighting with for two different but important elements- natural gas and water. Citizens are afraid, that that water is over contamined with methane and sodium and is not good gor consumption. "The water is so saturated with methane and other chemicals it is not to be used for human consumption," says Bernice Angely, who is forced to have water trucked from 10 miles distance from her house. Two years ago, her well was blown up, and this and an another incident made officials to think about the drilling of natural gas in Walsenburg. The two events in 2007 made Colorado officials to suspend natural gas drilling in the ar! ea till somebody finds out, why and where dangerous levels of methane were getting into the groundwater. But today is 2009 and Walsenberg is still waiting. Petroglyph Energy, Inc. , Idaho based firm had been drilling in the area since 1999 till they suspended the works. But Petroglyph says, i tis not clear, that drilling caused the methane to run into water. And as they believe, there is a promising gas area, they hope the shallow water formations used by homeowners are not connected to the one made by drilling. By creating hydraulic barrier they plan to prevent flows of gas into water. Steve Gunderson, director of Colorado water quality control division, says that Petroglyph will have to build a water treatment plant before it gets a new permission to continue in drilling. The old one allowed Petroglyph to release 8 milliongallons of water every day.

related story (sgx15784): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091102/ap_on_bi_ge/us_methane_m...

by Silvia Szarkova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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