Groundwater management and coal bed methane development in the Powder River Basin of Montana

Coal bed methane (CBM) development will eventually pump more than 124,000 ha-m of groundwater, or more than 40% of the recharge, from the coal seam and sandstone aquifers of the Montana portion of the Powder River Basin (PRB). This will relieve the hydrostatic pressure, by causing a drawdown in the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of hydrology (Amsterdam) 2009-04, Vol.368 (1), p.178-193
Main Author: Myers, Tom
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
aquifers
coal
Coal bed methane
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
groundwater
Groundwater drawdown
groundwater extraction
groundwater flow
Groundwater modeling
groundwater recharge
Hydrogeology
Hydrology. Hydrogeology
infiltration (hydrology)
mining
Montana
Reinjection
Water resources
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Summary:Coal bed methane (CBM) development will eventually pump more than 124,000 ha-m of groundwater, or more than 40% of the recharge, from the coal seam and sandstone aquifers of the Montana portion of the Powder River Basin (PRB). This will relieve the hydrostatic pressure, by causing a drawdown in the potentiometric surface and drawing groundwater from storage and natural discharges, to release the methane gas. A numerical groundwater flow model simulated drawdown that will exceed 90 m in the middle of the CBM fields with 6-m drawdown extending up to 29 km from the fields. Simulation results indicate that river flux will decrease up to 40% and drawdown will encompass hundreds of wells and springs. Recovery requires up to 45 years for significant decreases in river flux to recover and is not complete for 200 years. CBM development impacts can be mitigated in two ways. First, reinjecting produced water into depleted coal seams would replenish the lost storage so that recovery would draw less groundwater from long distances. Second, rapid infiltration basins near potentially-affected rivers could decrease the short-term river flow depletion. Modeled artificial recharge replaced up to 4000 ha-m of deficit in the depleted coal seams and is a feasible option for mitigating some effects of CBM development. Reinjection would be more effective if the development period were lengthened.
ISSN:0022-1694
1879-2707
DOI:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2009.02.001