water quality

DECEMBER 2019 UPDATE: The Wyoming Outdoor Council and our partners have requested that the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality inspect potential existing violations of Wyoming water quality standards at Moneta Divide, and we are still awaiting a reply. We are concerned that the DEQ involved Aethon, the project proponent, in its study of stream health that was in response to public concerns about potential impacts to wildlife and public health. The DEQ intends to reissue a revised permit for wastewater discharge in January. We’re also awaiting the Bureau of Land Management’s Environmental Impact Statement for the Moneta Divide project, which must evaluate wastewater disposal issues. Please stay tuned for how you can weigh in to protect our water, and tell the DEQ “Don’t Poison Boysen!”

This past spring,  snowmelt unleashed just as heavy rains fell for several weeks, swelling the reservoir at Boysen State Park to capacity. The Bureau of Reclamation increased flows to 7,000 cubic feet per second below the dam, pushing water high along the banks of the Wind and Bighorn rivers, creating a challenge for drifters. 

But the fishing was still hot.

“Yesterday we had two boats out, and each of our boats hooked up to about 40 fish — all in that 18- to 20-inch range,” fishing guide John Schwalbe said back in June.

Schwalbe, owner of Wyoming Adventures in Thermopolis, has guided on the Bighorn for 25 years, owing his livelihood to the Blue Ribbon trout fishery that produces big rainbows, browns, and cutthroat.

“I wouldn’t live in Thermopolis, Wyoming, if it were not for the Bighorn River that runs through it. It’s my livelihood, it’s the reason why I stuck around this area.”

— John Schwalbe, River Guide

A lot of his regular clients are locals who work in the oil and gas industry, and in addition to navigating the high water and figuring out what flies trout were hitting, the big topic of discussion this spring was the future of this fishery.

Upstream in the watershed is the Moneta Divide oil and gas field, where Texas-based Aethon Energy proposes to drill 4,100 new wells over the next 15 years — an economic boost for many communities in a part of the state that desperately needs jobs and revenue. But the company’s plan includes dumping up to 8.27 million gallons per day of “produced” oilfield wastewater — groundwater mixed in the oil- and gas-bearing formations — into tributaries of Boysen Reservoir.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality relied on modeling from a consultant hired by Aethon to determine that decreases in water quality in the Class 1 Wind River were insignificant. The DEQ’s analysis also found that impacts to Alkali and Badwater creeks would meet regulatory requirements. As it turned out, neither conclusion was correct. 

Although some residents want to see the drilling project move forward for the jobs and revenue, many worry that Aethon and the state didn’t do a thorough job of analyzing the plan and didn’t provide safeguards to ensure the viability of livelihoods that are tied to Boysen and to the Wind and Bighorn rivers.

“There’s a responsibility that we have here to manage our state well, but also put people to work. I’m all for that,” Schwalbe said. “But not at the cost of our watersheds and natural resources. Not at all.”

Clean water is too important to risk

With the help of partners and members, the Wyoming Outdoor Council hired hydrologists, aquatic biologists, and other scientists to conduct a detailed, expert analysis of the proposal by Aethon and the DEQ. The results were troubling. The analysis revealed significant flaws in the plan that would severely threaten aquatic life and municipal drinking water sources, as well as the economic and cultural values that tie Schwalbe and so many others to these iconic Wyoming waters.

“This proposal violates the Clean Water Act, the Wyoming Environmental Quality Act, and the DEQ’s own rules about implementing these important laws,” attorney and Outdoor Council Senior Conservation Advocate Dan Heilig said. “Fundamentally, though, the proposal unnecessarily risks the health and livelihoods of Wyomingites. It doesn’t have to be this way. There are other solutions.”

The Outdoor Council is not the only voice pointing out that good jobs and economic development should not be at odds with clean water and healthy fisheries. In many cases, they’re one and the same. Dusty Lewis is among a growing number of locals in Hot Springs County who hope to boost tourism in the area. Lewis owns Rent Adventure in Thermopolis, renting out drift boats, rafts, kayaks, and paddle boards. 

“We spend a lot of time in the water, and we do a lot of fishing,” he said. 

While Aethon and the DEQ assured the public that there’s no risk associated with the plan to use Boysen Reservoir as an oilfield wastewater mixing zone, Lewis and others were not fully convinced. There’s too much at stake, said Lewis.

“If the fishery were damaged, that would probably be the worst thing.” 

He noted that everyone in Thermopolis recognizes the outsized role the Bighorn plays in the community, and suggested that economics is only part of the equation. The river and the outdoor way of life it supports is a huge part of the community’s identity. That’s why this proposal is so troubling.

“I’ve got a five- and seven-year-old — Fischer and Fletcher — and they are outdoor junkies,” Lewis said. “They would be some little angry rugrats if something happened. They would be like, ‘Dad, why didn’t you act more responsibly and help the river get saved?’ So I think about it for them. The next generation coming up has a lot to overcome.”

Lewis also serves on the town council in Thermopolis. The town draws from the Bighorn for its municipal water. A change in water quality could add to operational costs at the town’s water treatment plant. Alternate sources for municipal water come with their own costs. Locals worry that tapping aquifers nearby could affect the town’s world-famous hot springs, and tapping aquifers elsewhere would come at a significant expense.

“There’s a lot of variables when you talk about changing water sources,” said Lewis.

Sustaining clean water is a win-win

Based on the scientific and legal analysis, the Outdoor Council submitted comments to the DEQ in July asking that the agency go back to the drawing board. “A careful look revealed so many significant flaws in this plan that we’re confident it won’t stand without a fundamental revision to ensure that water quality standards are met, and that downstream users and livelihoods are protected,” Heilig said.

This story went to press before we could learn of the DEQ’s response to the Outdoor Council’s comments or its proposed next steps. We were encouraged, however, by the number of public comments urging the DEQ to deny the permit — including a powerful letter from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that identified numerous significant flaws in the draft permit.

If the DEQ forwards its plan for Aethon Energy’s wastewater surface discharge permit without meaningful revision, the state may still face challenges to hold it accountable for safeguarding clean water resources. The Outdoor Council is committed to insisting that Wyoming’s clean water is protected.

As oil and gas leasing picks up around Wyoming, and as the Moneta Divide project expands, making sure that energy development doesn’t come at the expense of Wyoming’s clean air and water and healthy wildlife populations will continue to be a challenge. 

It’s one worth meeting head on. 

“Wyoming residents were given a false choice — that we must accept lower water quality and unknown risks in return for economic development,” Heilig said. “We know better. We hope that the DEQ takes into account the thousands of residents who rely on these iconic waters today and for generations to come.”

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Wyoming relies on clean water. From our world-class fishing and recreation, to irrigation and municipal use, clean water is a cornerstone of Wyoming’s economy and our way of life.

That’s why it was no surprise that hundreds of citizens packed two recent meetings to learn more about the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s proposed “surface discharge permit” for wastewater from the Moneta Divide oil and gas project.

Unfortunately, the dense, highly technical proposal — which would allow more than 8 million gallons per day of oilfield wastewater to be discharged into Alkali and Badwater creeks — does not adequately address environmental and human costs, and it seriously threatens the health of those creeks, Boysen Reservoir, and the communities downstream.

The DEQ’s proposal also sets up a false dichotomy: that Wyomingites must accept lesser water quality in exchange for the jobs and revenue that the Moneta oil and natural gas expansion plan promises.

The people of Wyoming know better.

There are solutions that allow for continued energy development in this area that don’t also risk the health of communities, fisheries, or the places we love. The DEQ needs to consider them.

What’s at stake: Wyoming’s clean water economy and heritage 

Thousands of people rely on Boysen Reservoir and Boysen State Park for fishing, camping and recreation, as well as the revenue those activities provide. Recognizing that, the DEQ rules designate Boysen Reservoir a “high quality water” requiring “the highest statutory and regulatory requirements for all new and existing point source discharges . . . ”   

Boysen flows into the Wind River, a vital resource for many communities. It cuts through the beautiful Wind River Canyon and becomes the Bighorn River at Wedding of the Waters just south of Thermopolis. The Blue Ribbon trout fisheries are integral to outfitters and the local tourism industry. The Bighorn provides municipal water for Thermopolis, and is a lifeline for irrigated agriculture throughout the Bighorn Basin.

THE PROPOSAL

The DEQ’s wastewater surface discharge proposal is the linchpin to a major drilling expansion in the historic Moneta Divide oil and gas field east of Shoshoni. Texas-based Aethon Energy, the main operator in the field, wants to add up to 4,100 new wells over the next 15 years. The project would support hundreds of jobs and provide an economic boon to several communities in the area that desperately need it. But the scale of the expansion, and the geology of the Moneta Divide field, present a major challenge.

The targeted oil and gas formations are laden with dirty water that would be brought to the surface with the oil and gas, requiring a massive undertaking to properly manage large volumes of “produced” water in a way that meets legal standards to protect existing clean water resources and uses.

The Moneta Divide oil and gas field currently has a reverse-osmosis water cleanup plant — the Neptune Water Treatment Facility. But the facility can handle only a small portion of the produced water that Aethon must manage. The field is also equipped with several wastewater injection wells, and Aethon’s proposal calls for several more injection wells to be constructed, as well as surface pits and other water handling methods. Even so, the massive volume of produced water still exceeds the capacity of these systems.

The DEQ proposes to allow Aethon to dump up to 8.27 million gallons per day of untreated and partially treated produced water into the riparian Alkali and Badwater creeks. The highly saline wastewater, which contains a long list of pollutants, would flow 40 miles west to Boysen Reservoir to settle and dilute in a “mixing zone” in Boysen’s Badwater Bay, according to the proposed DEQ permit.

In its proposal, the DEQ’s Water Quality Division relied on modeling and analysis from a consultant hired by Aethon Energy to determine that the discharge would not result in adverse impacts to human health or aquatic life in Boysen Reservoir, and would result in only minor, acceptable decreases in water quality in the Wind and Bighorn rivers downstream of Boysen.

Our analysis suggests otherwise. For the past two months, we’ve worked with fisheries biologists, hydrologists, and other scientific experts to take a closer look at the DEQ’s proposed discharge permit and the modeling it’s based on. We’ve found a number of flaws resulting in significant threats to the state’s surface waters, and will point these out to the DEQ in our written comments.

what we’ve discovered so far: 

• Impacts to aquatic life in Alkali Creek and in Badwater Creek from the daily discharge of millions of gallons of contaminated oil field wastewater will likely violate water quality standards for those streams.
• Polluted wastewater entering Badwater Bay, a proposed mixing zone, could harm an important nursery area for sauger, a species of fish related to the walleye.
• The Wind River will be degraded, despite a strict anti-degradation standard for Class 1 rivers.
• Chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing may enter Boysen Reservoir and contaminate drinking water supplies used by the Town of Thermopolis.
• The water quality baseline used to determine pollution levels in the WInd River should be 1979, the year when the Wind River was designated a Class 1 river — not 2010-2016.

There’s another way 

The previous owner of the Moneta Divide field, Encana, proposed a number of options to avoid problematic surface discharge of wastewater and the environmental damage it would cause. Among its solutions were deep well injection and treating the wastewater to Class 1 standards, then piping and discharging it into Boysen Reservoir. But the DEQ hasn’t considered any alternatives beyond the surface discharge proposed by Aethon, even though such analysis is required by the DEQ’s own rules.

We’re asking the DEQ to analyze other options. If surface discharge is necessary, the produced water should be purified and piped to Boysen Reservoir, not dumped into Alkali and Badwater creeks, where the environmental impacts will be devastating.

If done right, the Moneta Divide Project could be a “win-win” for local economies and downstream communities. The construction of advanced water treatment facilities and pipelines to transport purified water from the Moneta Divide field to Boysen Reservoir would provide high-paying jobs and protect the environment.

If done incorrectly, the discharge of massive quantities of produced water could devastate the Wind River and Bighorn River blue ribbon fisheries, contaminate municipal drinking water supplies, and render irrigation water unsuitable for crop production, leaving a legacy of pollution for future generations to clean up.

A robust energy industry doesn’t mean we must sacrifice our vital clean water resources. Energy development can be done responsibly.

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Please join us in asking the DEQ and Aethon Energy to go back to the drawing board and develop a proposal that protects water quality for present and future generations.

Click here to read a fact sheet about the DEQ’s proposed surface discharge permit and tips about how to provide a comment (public comment is due by July 5).

Click here to read a fact sheet about the BLM’s draft EIS for the Moneta Divide Oil and Gas Project, and for tips about how to provide public comment (public comment is due July 18).

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Ever splash in a backcountry stream or dip your face in an alpine pool to cool off after a strenuous hike?

Ever wonder who’s in charge of making sure those waters are clean — or how those decisions are made?

Right now, we have an opportunity to weigh in on a comprehensive review of Wyoming’s water quality standards, and to urge the Department of Environmental Quality to adopt the most protective standards available to protect water-based recreation, human health, and aquatic life.

Pushing for a more open review of water quality rules

Every three years, as required by the Clean Water Act, the DEQ reviews the standards that govern the quality of Wyoming’s surface waters. Often, the agency will propose changes that will provide increased protection for streams and lakes. But it sometimes proposes changes that may result in weakening water quality standards, which could significantly threaten human health and fisheries.

In its current review, the DEQ is considering a number of important changes to the existing standards, including a completely new classification system that will assign different levels of protection depending on uses of the water, and revising criteria for temporary exceedances of pollution limits intended to protect public health. It is also considering allowing for increased water temperatures caused by human activity, and changing the definitions of “primary” and “secondary” recreational use.

On October 12th we weighed in on the DEQ’s “Initial Scoping” document, which outlined several important changes to the water quality standards being considered (read our comments here). Although the initial scoping period is closed, we encourage you to contact the DEQ if you have concerns you’d like to share. We’ll also let you know when the formal comment period opens, and how to weigh in then.

“The triennial review process is wonky, and can be difficult for the average person to engage in,” Outdoor Council Senior Conservation Advocate Dan Heilig said. “But it’s a tremendously important opportunity to guide how our state protects water quality for recreation, fisheries and public health. There needs to be more outreach to the general public, and particularly to those in the outdoor recreation community.”

The most important thing for you to stress in your comments is how important clean water is to you.

A sweeping downgrade for Wyoming waters

One of the issues we’re tracking is how the state categorizes waterways for recreational use, which determines allowable levels of E. coli, a bacteria that can make people seriously ill.

You might remember that in 2016 the DEQ reclassified — or downgraded — 87,775 miles of streams to allow for a 500 percent increase in allowable levels of E. coli. These so-called “low flow” stream segments, flowing below six cubic feet per second, were assumed by DEQ to be too small for recreational use — such as swimming, dunking or “child’s play” — where water might be ingested.

The assumption was incorrect, so we fought back. But the DEQ had dug in its heels, and refused to recognize that primary contact recreation takes place on all kinds of surface waters, particularly on public lands where recreational use is high. Wyoming is the only state in the nation to use the Categorical Use Attainability Analysis for Recreation model to conduct such a statewide downgrade, rather than a segment-by-segment process based on actual field-collected data.

The DEQ’s model was far too sweeping: it effectively deemed 80 percent of Wyoming’s waterways — including many small streams where people are known to splash and dunk — unsuitable for primary contact recreation. It also didn’t prioritize robust public outreach to recreational users and others who would be most impacted by the changes.

Additionally, while the choice to use the UAA model to reclassify waterways helped save DEQ time and resources, it was also a model that put the huge burden of determining which streams should not be downgraded onto the public.

WOC provides missing information

This past summer, our legal intern, Rob Kutchin, a student at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, worked with Heilig to review the DEQ’s statewide downgrade. They found numerous streams around the state that, according to the DEQ’s own definition of “primary contact recreation,” should have retained the highest water quality standards. Instead, these streams — many near established recreation sites — had been downgraded.

For example, under the DEQ’s faulty model, just three dispersed campsites in all of Fremont County retained the stronger standard. In fact, there are more than 30 such campsites off Lander’s Loop Road alone, all of which should have received protection as sites for primary contact recreation. Perhaps most troubling, the DEQ lowered water quality protection on streams near the Fremont County Youth Camp, which is visited by hundreds of children each summer.

The Outdoor Council alerted the DEQ to more than 75 recreation sites overlooked by the model. Another group alerted DEQ about an additional 63 Forest Service trailheads the agency missed in its data collection efforts.

“We thought this would be an easy ask,” Heilig said. “Our hope was that the DEQ would quickly correct these types of obvious errors. Instead, it rejected all of this information and said it would not accept data-based corrections to its location modeling.”

In other words, the DEQ used incomplete datasets to erroneously downgrade water quality standards for thousands of stream miles, then said it would only accept site-specific evidence collected in the field — requiring stringent criteria — before considering corrections to the model.

The DEQ’s comprehensive review is especially important as we keep pushing to protect these waterways — because it’s an opportunity for the recreation standards themselves to be revised, upward or downward.

We expect Wyoming DEQ will publish its proposed revisions to the water quality standards sometime within the next few months. Meantime, we’ve asked DEQ to hold public hearings and conduct additional outreach about its triennial review in Lander and Jackson, communities where outdoor recreation is a significant driver of local economies and central to quality of life. We’ll keep you posted. Stay tuned for details on how to comment.

A bad idea for Badwater Creek

Just as we were going to press, we learned about a proposal being advanced by the DEQ to permit higher levels of industrial pollutants in central Wyoming’s Badwater Creek. Aethon Energy says it needs to dispose of an estimated 1 million barrels per day of toxic “produced water” from its proposed drilling expansion in the Moneta Divide natural gas field. The company wants to discharge the waste into Badwater Creek, which flows directly into Boysen Reservoir, the main feature at Boysen State Park. Boysen feeds into the Wind River, a designated Class I “outstanding resource water” in Wind River Canyon, upstream of Thermopolis. Allowing this kind of industrial disposal into Badwater Creek could present dire threats to fisheries and human health throughout a watershed central to rural economies and lifestyles for a major portion of the state.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns with the proposal and ask the DEQ to provide more data about the potential impacts. We will keep a close eye on the matter as it moves forward, so stay tuned.

Contact: Dan Heilig, dan@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

 

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Growing up in Wisconsin, Rob Kutchin is familiar with how important water — clean water — is for us, our health, and our local ecosystems. Kutchin grew up near the state’s capital, Madison, a city oriented around two large lakes that generate notable pride for its residents. Wisconsin has one of the highest ratios of water to land mass of any state. He said it’s nearly impossible for kids raised there — playing, swimming and fishing in these waters — to not develop an awareness about water’s significance to everyday life.

Kutchin, now a 27 year-old Juris Doctor degree candidate at UC Berkeley’s School of Law, has earned the opportunity to reinforce this same awareness in Wyoming. This June, Kutchin was hired as a legal intern to work alongside Dan Heilig, the Wyoming Outdoor Council’s senior conservation advocate, on a project to restore proper protections for Wyoming’s water.

The idea for this project stems from our work over the past three years, in response to the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s reclassification of nearly 80 percent of Wyoming’s waterways in August 2014. The DEQ used a statewide analysis called a Categorical Use Attainability Analysis for Recreation to determine and implement these reclassifications. Based largely on modeling, the DEQ’s analysis — the first of its kind undertaken by any U.S. state — was intended to gather information about all of Wyoming’s streams, their depths, locations, and primary use.

The final reclassification downgraded 82,896 miles of low-flow streams from primary contact recreation to secondary contact recreation. Unlike primary contact recreation, defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as activities where incidental ingestion of water is possible from splashing, wading, head dunking or swimming, secondary contact presumes the flow would be too low to support these activities. With the loss of primary contact status, the state now allows for increased levels of E. coli pollution over time, as much as five times more E. coli than primary contact streams. E. coli is an indicator of harmful pathogens in waterways and presents increased health risks for anyone coming into contact with it.

Despite the DEQ’s assertion that the reclassification includes mostly remote and shallow streams, the agency did revise its initial decision in 2016 following public outcry. Heilig said he knows there are many improperly downgraded streams in the state that people frequent throughout the summer. This summer, Kutchin will work with Heilig to identify some of these streams in and around Fremont County, and will also work alongside dozens of NOLS students to document water flow levels and test recreational capacity — by sometimes splashing around themselves — and documenting that activity. Armed with this evidence, the Outdoor Council hopes to make a strong case to the DEQ for returning misclassified streams to primary contact status. The NOLS students make excellent partners for Kutchin’s work since many of the downgraded streams lie just outside wilderness areas, where many hikers often cross on their way into the backcountry. Their participation and data collection will allow the Outdoor Council to accurately document how these downgraded streams are being used for recreation.

Kutchin has already spent many of his first few days in the Shoshone National Forest, exploring streams near dispersed campsites and trailheads that the DEQ’s predictive map analysis may have missed or misclassified. He said he’s grateful for the opportunity to work in the familiar Wind River Range, where he’s been leading NOLS wilderness education courses as an instructor for nearly seven years. His experience in the backcountry, as a NOLS instructor, a volunteer search and rescue ranger in Alaska with the National Park Service, and a leadership course director in Death Valley, California, only serve to further strengthen his advocacy for clean water sources for safe outdoor recreation.

“When you’re in the backcountry, you organize almost all of your life around water,” Kutchin said. “It dictates when you stop, where you stop, where you camp. New students sometimes forget to, or improperly treat their water, or on a hot day, after hours of hiking, plunge into cool pools without thinking about the potential hazards in the water. The DEQ’s downgrades make this thought necessary.”

As he continues to gather data and evidence over the summer, Kutchin and Heilig will write formal petitions to the DEQ asking the agency to properly classify these streams to protect those who engage in primary contact recreation — like NOLS students, and other backcountry hikers, hunters, and anglers.

“I hope the DEQ will recognize how important clean water is to our outdoor lifestyle in Wyoming by responding positively to our data collection and petitions,” Kutchin said. “And I hope our work will inspire people to reflect on the central role that water plays in their lives.”

To learn more, contact Rob Kutchin at rob@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org or Dan Heilig at dan@wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org.

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Our work relies on the support of our members. Will you support our clean water campaign this summer by making a donation?

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