Management and Effects of Coalbed Methane Produced Water in the United States

TABLE 2.2 Range of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) in mg/L for CBM Produced Water from each Western Basin Compared to TDS for General Water Types and Water Quality Standards

	TDS in mg/L
Western CBM basins
Powder River	250 to greater than 3,000
San Juan	10,000 to greater than 100,000
Raton	900 to 30,000
Uinta	6,350 to 42,700
Piceance	Greater than 10,000
General water types
Fresh water	Less than 1,000
Saline water	Greater than 1,000
Seawater	35,000
Water quality standards
U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act (secondary standard)	500
Wyoming agriculture standards (Class II)	2,000
Wyoming livestock standards (Class III)	5,000
NOTE: Both TDS and salinity can be used to measure water quality. TDS is a quantitative measure of all residual dissolved minerals after evaporation and is generally expressed as mg/L. Salinity measures the concentrations of dissolved salts in the water volume. Salinity may be measured by TDS, electrical conductivity, or osmotic pressure. Where sodium chloride and sodium bicarbonate are known to be the dominant minerals in a sample of water, such as in waters of the western basins, high TDS will often indicate high salinity. SOURCES: ALL Consulting (2003); S.S. Papadopulos & Associates (2007); water.usgs.gov/watuse/wu-glossary.html (accessed July 6, 2010); www.watereuse.org/information-resources/about-desalination/glossaryd (accessed July 6, 2010); Wyoming DEQ (2005).

Generally, TDS concentration ranges from the hundreds to thousands of milligrams per liter in produced water in the basins where sodium bicarbonate dominates, such as in the Powder River Basin, whereas TDS concentrations can exceed tens of thousands to more than 100,000 mg/L where sodium chloride dominates the chemistry of the CBM water, such as in the San Juan Basin (Table 2.2). In the Powder River Basin, much of the geochemical signature of the produced water is derived from water-rock interactions (Box 2.3).

Jackson and Reddy (2007) report concentrations of trace elements and volatile organic compounds (Gas Research Institute, 1995; Rice et al., 2000) for produced water in the Powder River Basin (see also Jackson and Reddy, 2010). Some metals, such as barium, appear to have concentrations close to the solubility of controlling minerals (e.g., barite).

Table of Contents

Front Matter R1-R18

Summary 1-10

1 Methane and Water in Coalbeds 11-18

2 Coalbed Methane Produced Water in Western U.S. Basins: Hydrogeological and Geochemical Foundations 19-56

3 Regulatory Context for Coalbed Methane Produced Water Management 57-90

4 Coalbed Methane Produced Water Management and Beneficial Uses 91-112

5 Environmental Effects of Coalbed Methane Development and Produced Water Management 113-160

6 Technologies and Costs for Coalbed Methane Produced Water Treatment 161-180

7 Conclusions and Recommendations 181-188

Appendixes 189-190

Appendix A: Legislative Authorization Language H.R. 6 - Energy Policy Act of 2005 Section 1811. Coal Bed Methane Study 191-192

Appendix B: Committee and Staff Biographical Sketches 193-198

Appendix C: Presentations to the Committee 199-200

Appendix D: Information Inventory 201-208

Appendix E: Historical Significance of a Water "Compact": Development of the Colorado Compact and the Upper Colorado River Basin Compact 209-212

Appendix F: Tribal Management of Coalbed Methane Development and Produced Water 213-216

Appendix G: Acronyms and Abbreviations 217-220