Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I'd like to thank the members of this committee for actually agreeing to hear this issue. Thank you very much.
My name is Robert Schwartz. I live near Red Deer, a city located in the southern third of Alberta, approximately 100 kilometres east of the eastern slopes of the Rockies.
Is coal-bed methane a federal environmental issue? To answer this question, we must understand what coal-bed methane gas is and how CBM production differs from conventional oil and gas production. We must also understand the magnitude of the proposed development and how it will affect the hydrology of the interprovincial watershed.
I would like to quote two passages from Alberta's Earth Sciences Report 2003-2004. The first quote is:
These tests suggest producing water from these aquifers initiates flow from the aquifers, flow across aquifer-aquitard boundaries and potentially flow from surface water bodies. These connections became evident under relatively low flow conditions when compared to production rates that would be associated with coalbed methane development.
The second quote from the same report states:
Under this scenario, one of the potential receptors of this produced water is surface water, such as rivers and lakes.
I would also like to quote Mr. Neil McCrank, past chairman of the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, the regulatory body that we deal with there. In 2006, as a speaker at a Canadian Society for Unconventional Gas conference, Mr. McCrank stated that there will be 25 to 50 times as many wells drilled for coal-bed methane than have been drilled for conventional oil and gas.
To date there have been 327,000 conventional oil and gas wells drilled in Alberta. If the past chairman of AEUB is correct, there will be 8 million to 16 million CBM wells drilled in this province. Most of these 8 million to 16 million wells will produce coal-bed methane gas from many shallow or thin coal layers that also contain fresh water. These coal seams have a hydrological connection to the interprovincial watershed. These seams can be seen at many places along both the Red Deer River and North Saskatchewan River.
The southern third of the province of Alberta is the headwaters of this major interprovincial drainage system. This headwater drainage area flows via the Oldman River, the Bow River, the Battle River, the Red Deer River, and the North Saskatchewan River. The Red Deer River and the North Saskatchewan, in particular, are used as a spawning ground for Lake Winnipeg whitefish and touladi. All of the rivers mentioned are used, to some degree, as spawning habitat for many fish species originating in Manitoba. These river systems all discharge into Hudson Bay via the Nelson River. These river systems, as well as being a vital component of a viable fish population in Manitoba, are a vital source of potable water in Saskatchewan.
The geological layering of subsurface Alberta is interesting. We know that on the surface, precipitation and river flow is from west to east. Precipitation that becomes ground water through soil absorption follows the underlying geology and flows as groundwater from east to west in the Red Deer area. Much of this groundwater does not travel far west before it is discharged through springs and seeps into the deep gorges of these interprovincial river systems.
If one thinks of the eastern slopes and foothills of the Rockies as a 100,000-square-mile sponge that moderates river flows, this would be a correct analogy. This hypothetical sponge would lie above the Lee Park formation. The Lee Park formation is the shallowest impermeable formation above which all other formations are considered to be unconsolidated. The hydrology above the Lee Park formation is known to have small impermeable lenses capable of trapping gas. As a whole, all geology above the Lee Park formation is considered permeable and homogeneous. What Alberta allows to happen in this sponge will certainly have downstream consequences.
The AEUB special report number 81, published in September 2006, admits in the executive summary that a hydraulic connection exists between the different portions of coal-bearing formations on a regional scale. Most coal-bed methane development will take place above the Lee Park formation, whereas most conventional oil and gas production takes place below the Lee Park.
I hope my explanation of the general geology of Alberta has kindled a federal interest in what type of activity takes place above the Lee Park. All water above the Lee Park, whether it's precipitation, groundwater, or surface water, eventually ends up as interprovincial river flow.
Conventional oil and gas production takes place predominantly below the Lee Park. These host rock formations are capped by impermeable lenses of material that prevent the upward natural migration of oil and gas. The oil and gas trapped in these host rock formations is thermogenic--that is to say, conventional oil and gas has been produced by heat and pressure. This process of converting prehistoric plant and animal matter into oil and gas has long since expired. There is no more conventional oil and gas being created. Because of the geological age of conventional oil and gas, it is nearly always associated with highly saline water, which is the remnant of a vast inland salt water ocean.
Provincial regulation mandates that conventional oil and gas wells isolate potable groundwater from saline water by means of cemented surface casings, inside which are cemented production casings that are run right to the bottom of the well. The hypothetical freshwater sponge zone mentioned earlier is by and large protected, although a significant percentage of all surface casings develop leaks. These leaks are required to be repaired under current provincial conventional oil and gas regulations.
Coal-bed methane is a completely different situation. CBM is produced from shallow geologic zones that have historically been excluded from production by previous regulations.
The origin of CBM is entirely different from conventional oil and gas. CBM is the result of present-time microbiological organisms that produce methane as a waste. This microbiological process is dependent on the presence of non-saline water. The coal seam only acts as a host rock in which the methane collects. The presence of coal is not critical, or even necessary, for the microbiological production of methane gas; coal seams are merely the most porous geological formations and thus the most efficient medium from which to extract methane. I'd like to add that some coal seams have a porosity high enough that they will allow a water flow rate of 800 metres a day. These are aquifers, and moving aquifers.
The regulations that have historically protected these hypothetical sponges have been relaxed. The new regulations have, by and large, been put forward by industry and summarily adopted by the Alberta government regulators. These new regulations allow for and authorize many practices that will have a profound negative effect on groundwater and consequently river water.
The new CBM regulations allow for the dewatering of coal seams and the injection of this water into deeper saline zones. This dewatering of coal seams, necessary to induce gas flow into the well bore, will have the delayed effect of reducing river flows, as the creation of dry depressurized zones in the near-surface geology will surely acquire river water to replace that which was removed.
The new regulations allow for the commingling of production of a well from all zones capable of being produced. In other words, this allows shallow CBM gas to be produced from the same well bore as, and at the same time as, deep conventional gas.
As a point of reference, in water well construction, the practice of producing potable water from more than one aquifer has been banned for years.
It is reasonable to expect that water will drain from an upper freshwater formation into the lower saltwater formations—