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<\/p>\nI’ve always wanted to live in Wyoming.\u00a0 In my imagination the state embodied everything you could want from the western United States – untamed forests, rugged mountains, vast open ranges, and a minimal amount of people.\u00a0 For the most part I’ve found those things I was looking for in Buffalo, Wyoming where I’ve been working for the past three weeks.\u00a0 Well, everything but the vast open ranges<\/p>\n
The Powder River Basin which lies east of Buffalo is coalbed\u00a0natural gas\u00a0territory.\u00a0 The landscape is home to thousands of roads, wells, compression facilities, and reservoirs.\u00a0 My internship has revolved primarily around the water that is produced by coalbed natural gas development and frequently stored in reservoirs.\u00a0 I spent my first week or so working with the hydrology techs on the monitoring of water quality and well depths around the reservoirs.\u00a0 Since then I’ve been working with ArcGIS and Excel to organize and manage the database associated with the reservoirs.\u00a0 Each reservoir has to be bonded so that it can be reclaimed once production is finished.\u00a0 I’ve been trying to discover which reservoirs were actually built in order to assure they are bonded for reclamation.<\/p>\n
I also had the chance to attend the Energy Resources and Produced Water Conference at the University of Wyoming.\u00a0 It was a great opportunity to see the issue of coalbed\u00a0natural gas\u00a0from the perspective of industry, consultants, and researchers.\u00a0 One of the most interesting presentations was about the recent development of coalbed\u00a0natural gas\u00a0in Australia.\u00a0 Seeing pictures of the Australian landscapes compared to the Powder River Basin made it clear that many of the measures being taken in Wyoming to reduce the impact of coalbed\u00a0natural gas\u00a0production are working.\u00a0 The use of telemetry to reduce site visits, reclamation of roads, and the burying of powerlines all seem to be help reduce impacts on the landscape.<\/p>\n
My internship has been a wonderful experience so far and I look forward to seeing what the next four months will bring.\u00a0 I don’t have any pictures from work yet but I’ll post some from my meanderings around the Big Horn Mountains and the surrounding country.<\/p>\n
-Jacob Dyste<\/p>\n
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I’ve always wanted to live in Wyoming.\u00a0 In my imagination the state embodied everything you could want from the western United States – untamed forests, rugged mountains, vast open ranges, and a minimal amount of people.\u00a0 For the most part … Continue reading