The BC Ministry of Water, Land and Air Protection has released a “Code of Practice Intentions Paper” – a summary of its proposed Code of Practice for the Discharge of Produced Water from Coalbed Gas Operations.
Once approved and finalized, the Code will become a Code of Practice under the Environmental Management Act – BC’s primary pollution prevention law.
The government is seeking to expand oil and gas operations in the province. Key to its plans is the development of coalbed methane, a gas that is found trapped in coal deposits in various locations around the province. Coalbed methane is not yet in production in BC; but work is now being done on an exploratory and experimental basis.
Production of coalbed methane often requires the extraction of large volumes of water, known as produced water. The water needs to be removed in order to release the pressure that traps the gas in the coal seam.
How to safely dispose of the produced water is an important environmental issue. Produced water may be highly saline, or may contain heavy metals – both of which may be harmful to the receiving environment.
West Coast has reviewed the proposed Code of Practice, as set out in the Intentions Paper, and has many concerns about the proposed regulatory regime for handling coalbed methane produced water. In a nutshell, West Coast is concerned that the regulatory regime proposed is not sufficiently stringent or precautionary, and could result in the degradation of BC’s streams and groundwater and/or do potential harm to both drinking water supplies and fish populations.