"No one is neutral" in water fight

Decker, Mont.
Out on the CX Ranch - a patch of ponderosa-pine prairie straddling the Wyoming-Montana border - water is hard to come by.

So a few years ago, when an energy company approached ranch manager Chuck Lar sen with the idea of using water from its coal-bed methane gas wells, the burly cowboy didn't hesitate.

Today, on 37 lush, green acres, Larsen is growing 3 to 4 tons a year of alfalfa irrigated with water pumped out of an underground coal seam.

"Without the water, that field wouldn't be here," Larsen said.

About 120 miles southeast of Larsen's spread, Ed Swartz is convinced coal-bed methane water isn't saving his ranch, but ruining it.

In October 1999, Wildcat Creek, usually just a trickle, was swamped, flooding the Swartz Ranch with coal-bed methane water.

"The water just kept running for over a year, and I noticed my trees started dying," Swartz said. "It was garbage water."

As far as Wyoming sheep rancher Pat O'Toole is concerned, the worst thing anyone could do with coal-bed methane water is waste it.

Over the next eight years, up to 450,000 barrels of water a day are projected to be produced in southern Wyoming's Atlantic Rim Basin, where a major coal-bed methane reserve has been discovered.

The federal government wants companies to reinject the water into the ground.

O'Toole wants to gain control of the water and ship it down the nearby Colorado River to thirsty desert towns - a venture that could net a savvy water-rights holder millions of dollars.

"I believe it's too valuable a resource to waste," said O'Toole, who added that he has already floated the idea by Las Vegas' water provider, the Southern Nevada Water Authority.
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