CHEYENNE -- The director of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, John Corra, says he's optimistic that a new working group he's appointed will offer helpful suggestions for new ways to regulate groundwater discharged by coal-bed methane wells.

Corra isn't offering apologies, though, for continuing to issue well permits under existing regulations.

The Powder River Basin Resource Council and other environmentalists say the department shouldn't issue permits under the existing regulations, which independent consultants have criticized as unscientific.

Water from coal-bed methane wells has turned many previously ephemeral drainages in the Powder River Basin into year-round streams. Some areas along those streams have become too salty to sustain good grass for cattle.

Managing the water to prevent salt buildup has become an intense challenge for many ranchers -- several of whom say there should be no new coal-bed methane wells until the state enacts new regulations for salinity.

But until the agency has developed new regulations, Corra said, state law requires permits to be issued.

"The way in which environmental regulation works is you set up rules and regulations and policies that govern how you issue permits," Corra said Thursday. "Those continue until something replaces them."

Coal-bed methane wells pump water out of saturated coal deposits, depressurizing the groundwater not unlike opening a soda bottle. Methane gas condenses out of the groundwater and is pumped out.

Northeast Wyoming's thousands of coal-bed methane wells have been pumping millions of gallons of groundwater to the surface. Some of that water is salty when it comes out of the ground, but two experts told the state this year that properly regulating salinity isn't as simple as turning off the spigot when water's too salty.

Even when water isn't especially salty at its source, soils downstream can become salty when there's not enough flow variation to flush out salt that builds up, the consultants said in two reports.

Corra said the reports should be helpful to the 28-member working group, which meets for the first time Dec. 2 in Gillette. The group is made up of ranchers, gas industry representatives, environmentalists, state regulators and others.

"I know all the people in the group," Corra said. "I know that they're not bashful and I think that the time is right for us to bring people together. I'm hoping that collectively we will find something that will work for everybody."

One member, Powder River Basin Resource Council organizer Ashley Roberts, said the department's decision to keep issuing permits under the current regulations is "very questionable."

The department ought to throw out the existing regulations, she said, and not try to build upon them. She suggested regulating coal-bed methane water as it moves down watersheds, not just at the pipes where it flows out of the ground.

"Once it comes out of the pipe doesn't mean that it's gone," she said. "It definitely goes somewhere."

Another member of the working group, Petroleum Association of Wyoming Vice President John Robitaille, said he's going into the meetings with an open mind and hopes the group can develop a new rule that works for everybody.

He praised the department for convening the working group.

"We're on board with that," he said.