Rocky Mountain Front rancher Lisa Schmidt has a reputation for keeping a close eye on the 16 springs that sustain her cattle and sheep operation. She knows she’s lucky to have the springs on her property, and she doesn’t take them for granted — especially not after high oil prices in 2011 led the property’s mineral rights holders to explore an alternate source of subsurface revenue: oil and gas reservoirs.

After exploratory drilling on the ranch ceased, Schmidt started sampling her groundwater once or twice a year to ensure the safety of the resource her family and livestock rely on and establish a baseline against which she can measure any water quality declines in the future.

“Everybody around here knows that I watch my water,” Schmidt told Montana Free Press in a recent interview. “Without my springs, I don’t have a ranch.”

While visiting the Pondera County commissioners about an unrelated matter in October, Schmidt happened to learn about a proposal to inject wastewater from a Great Falls-based biofuel operation into two old oil and gas wells located between Dupuer and Valier. Since Schmidt lives “about five miles, as the crow flies” from the two wells, she started researching the company that produces the biofuel and reviewing its wastewater disposal plan.

Schmidt said that what she’s found troubles her, and she’s not alone in seeking assurance that the proposal is safe. A Pondera County Commission meeting in January devoted to the proposal drew about 80 attendees as the company attempted to dispel rumors and assure residents of its safety.

Montana Renewables has largely flown under the radar, but it’s a big deal in the biofuel world. Since its formation in 2021, it’s become North America’s largest manufacturer of a product called sustainable aviation fuel. This year, the company is set to sell 30 million gallons of the low-emissions fuel to multinational oil company Shell, which then sells it to airlines including Alaska Air, Delta and JetBlue. 

At a May event, Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte lauded Montana Renewables and an expedited regulatory review process that allowed the company to ship its first batch of fuel a year after it was spun off from parent company Calumet Specialty Products Partners.

“Montana Renewables is a great example of what’s possible when there aren’t sideboards placed on innovation,” Gianforte said at the Great Falls event. “The result is a healthier environment, a stronger economy and more jobs. We’ll continue to champion pro-jobs, pro-business policies to support cutting-edge, job-creating businesses like Calumet.”

Montana Renewables CEO Bruce Fleming recently told MTFP his company’s output is “a drop in the bucket” in comparison to traditional jet fuel production, but said the market for Montana Renewables’ low-emissions product is rapidly expanding. Fleming said Calumet decided to locate Montana Renewables in Great Falls due to its access to refining equipment, rail lines and markets. Nearby states and provinces such as Oregon, Washington and British Columbia provide Montana Renewables with both biofuel source material and a ready supply of biofuel buyers.

To make sustainable aviation fuel and other biofuel products such as biodiesel, Montana Renewables purchases a variety of “feedstocks” — i.e., starting ingredients — and processes them at their refinery, which shares some infrastructure with Calumet. Whereas Calumet uses traditional oil and gas to produce transportation fuels and specialty products, Montana Renewables starts with plant- and animal-based feedstocks. Approximately 135 employees process oil derived from crops like camolina, canola and hemp, as well as tallow and grease sourced from beef, chickens and pork, to make aviation fuel, biodiesel and other biofuels.

Fleming said the company first puts the feedstocks through a “hot water wash” to strip them of the nitrogen, phosphorus, salts, calcium and other materials they’ve picked up along the way. He likened the process to washing a corn cob in hot water and said the approximately 2,500 barrels of wastewater that’s generated per day is free of hazardous materials. In some areas, similar byproducts are even used to irrigate crops, he said.

“Could you literally drink it? Yeah, you could literally drink it,” he said, alluding to EPA’s assessment that it’s free of materials classified as hazardous waste under federal law. 

The problem, Fleming said, is that the Great Falls wastewater treatment plant isn’t set up to take the wastewater. Fleming said Montana Renewables and the plant are conducting a feasibility study to determine the volume- and technology- related upgrades that would have to be installed to accommodate Montana Renewables’ wastewater, but in the meanwhile the company has hired a trucking company to haul the wastewater to the railway station in Shelby. From there, trains carry it to industrial wastewater injection wells in other states including Wisconsin, Wyoming and Texas. 

Fleming said that arrangement is less than ideal from a sustainability standpoint, due to the distances and expense, so about two years ago the company started talking with a Cut Bank-based business called Montalban Oil and Gas Operations about the feasibility of injecting the wastewater into shuttered oil and gas wells located closer to its plant in Great Falls. 

Shortly thereafter, Montalban started working with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on applications to inject the wastewater into two oil and gas wells located on the property of Pondera County resident Jody Fields. If the agency issues the permits, about a dozen trucks daily will haul the wastewater to the two wells, which have been previously used to dispose of wastewater generated in the oil and gas production process.

As first reported by The Electric, the EPA is accepting comments on the permit applications (Jody Fields 34-1 and Jody Fields 34-2) through Jan. 24.

If the EPA issues the permits, Montalban will be allowed to inject about 16 million barrels of wastewater into the two wells over the life of the permit. According to fact sheets prepared by the EPA, the wastewater can be injected into one of the wells at a pressure of up to 1,500 pounds per square inch, or psi. The maximum psi that would be allowed at the other well is 700 “to prevent injection pressures from initiating new or propagating existing fractures in the injection zone, and from causing movement of injection or formation fluids into [underground drinking water sources].”

The injection zone is located about 3,500 feet below ground in the Mississippian Madison Aquifer formation. According to the EPA, the injection zone is located a substantial distance below drinking water wells and within a “confining zone” that should prevent the wastewater from traveling into drinking water sources located closer to the surface.

“The geologic setting for injection, long term containment, and isolation of injected fluids” is protective of drinking water sources, the EPA has determined.

For his part, Patrick Montalban, president and CEO of Montalban Oil and Gas Operations, told attendees of the Jan. 3 Pondera County Commission meeting that the wastewater is “cleaner water than we currently inject in these wells, or have injected in these wells.” Montalban also made an economic pitch to the 80 or so individuals in attendance. 

“This is going to be very positive for Pondera County,” he said. “These communities in rural areas are drying up. These projects are needed in our state.”

Fleming, who traveled from his home in Indianapolis to attend the commission meeting, echoed that prospect, suggesting that Montana Renewables could generate enough demand for feedstock to spur investment into two processing facilities that Montana currently lacks, but could use: a seed crusher and a meat rendering plant.

 “Like it or not, we are the energy transition that everybody talks about on cable news all of the time. We are running 100% non-crude oil. It’s coming from acreage — it’s coming from farms, it’s coming from ranches.”

Montana Renewables CEO Bruce Fleming

“Like it or not, we are the energy transition that everybody talks about on cable news all of the time,” he said at the commission meeting. “We are running 100% non-crude oil. It’s coming from acreage. It’s coming from farms, it’s coming from ranches.”

Though the injection well permits are good for 10 years, Fleming also said his company plans to inject into the wells for only one or two years while it makes arrangements for the Great Falls wastewater treatment plant to accept the wastewater. In his conversation with MTFP, Fleming emphasized safety features of the wells that are designed to prevent, detect and stop any leaks. He also argued that while industrial wastewater injection wells might be new to Montana, they aren’t new to the EPA.

But back on the Rocky Mountain Front, Schmidt said she still has a number of unresolved concerns. Like some other Pondera County residents, she’s anxious about the truck traffic that will be traveling miles of rural gravel road to reach the wells. About a dozen will travel the road daily, Fleming said. 

But more than that, Schmidt said she’s concerned about ambiguous language in the draft permits allowing Montana Renewables to inject wastewater that’s been in contact with feedstocks that “may include but are not limited to” vegetable oils, animal fats, distiller’s corn oil and used cooking oil. She wants to know what those other feedstock materials might be. She told commissioners at the Jan. 3 meeting that she’s worried the wastewater’s composition could change without local residents’ awareness.

Schmidt also said she still has concerns related to the well’s geology, a subject she’s been researching to learn more about her groundwater and potential threats to it. 

“I’m concerned that they’ll inject this stuff in and it’s going to come up through the limestone and sandstone and into the shale. … I don’t want that stuff to come up into my groundwater.”

Conrad rancher Lisa Schmidt

“The EPA permit talks about the limestone layer and how it is assumed to be impermeable, but there’s nothing that says we know for sure this stuff is impermeable and hasn’t cracked. We’ve been pumping stuff out [of the well] and we’re pumping stuff back in it,” she said. “I’m concerned that they’ll inject this stuff in and it’s going to come up through the limestone and sandstone and into the shale. … I don’t want that stuff to come up into my groundwater.”

Schmidt is also quick to note that she’s not opposed Montana Renewables — or traditional oil and gas development, for that matter. She said she just wants the process to proceed thoughtfully and transparently in a manner protective of the Golden Triangle’s groundwater.

“If they can do it without hurting the water, then how cool is that — that’s great,” she said. “I want them to do it right.” 

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