Coalbed backers pan CBS report (boo-hoo) | Billings Gazette

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Coalbed backers pan CBS report

Associated Press

SHERIDAN - The Coalbed Natural Gas Alliance criticized Dan Rather's "60 Minutes Wednesday" piece on coalbed methane development in the Powder River Basin, saying the program focused on conflicts while ignoring people who are happy with coalbed methane development.

In a news release Thursday, Karen Brown, spokeswoman for the alliance, said the program was edited to show more conflict than there really is. She said Rather and his crew interviewed several landowners and industry officials but didn't include their comments in the show.

"Unfortunately," Brown said, "producers of the show cut these interviews from the final segment and focused instead on a small minority who felt in some way wronged by energy developers."

The rapid development of the coalbed methane industry in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and Montana and the prevalence of split estates - tracts where one person owns the surface rights to the land while another owns the mineral rights below - have led to some conflicts between landowners and developers.

Brown said the program focused too much on those conflicts.

More at the Billings Gazette

Oddly enough real honest to goodness polling shows that CBS is right on target and most people not only dislike the fact that mineral rights owners destroy their land, but really dislike the despoiled groundwater