GILLETTE - "One morning there was no water."

For 34 years, Beverly and Roland Landry enjoyed the effortless flow of their artesian water well high on the western edge of the Powder River valley in northeastern Wyoming. The earth-warmed water flowed at 50 gallons per minute, plenty of water to winter 200 head of cattle and meet all the family's domestic needs.

But not a drop has spilled from the well for the past year, and now the Landrys understand the value of water better than most people. They measure it by the dozens of 1-gallon milk jugs lined in rows on their kitchen floor.

"A bath takes at least 12 gallons, and that's a skimpy bath," Beverly Landry says as she chops a sausage to add to her soup simmering on the stove.

"It takes three gallons to flush the toilet. We don't do those things any more than we have to."

The elderly couple fills jug after jug at their neighbor's home a few miles up the river valley, and Beverly makes at least one trip per week to Buffalo some 40 miles away to do laundry. They say they can't afford the estimated $47,000 it will cost to drill a new well system, but they're hoping that coalbed methane companies will pitch in to help.

Beverly said she doesn't believe the industry's assertion that three years of drought may have sapped their artesian well. She believes it's more than just coincidence that the well stopped flowing just as the coalbed methane drilling rigs came down the Powder River valley.

"It ran for 34 years with no problems and one morning it was dry. And there's other wells that have stopped flowing, too," Landry said.

At the time, the closest coalbed methane well was drilled between 4 and 5 miles away. The company monitored the artesian well for about a week, then informed the Landrys that the coalbed methane well couldn't be the cause of the problem.

The Wyoming State Engineer's Office later determined that the artesian well reached to a sand aquifer. The coalbed methane well pumped water from a coal aquifer. "Inconclusive," was the final answer.

State officials and Sen. John Schiffer, R-Kaycee, wanted to help, so an account was established at a Buffalo bank to help fund a new well for the Landrys. Don Likwartz, director of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, said the effort has gone on for many months but so far there hasn't been a lot of support from the industry.

Companies that are active in the area maintain they are not at fault. Even donating to the Landry fund without names attached has been a hard sell.

Marathon, one company that is active in the area, said it wouldn't discuss specific cases such as the Landry well. But officials maintain that they do fix or replace wells they impact.

"We've done what we have determined to be appropriate in every case," said Bill Browne, operations manager.

"I don't know that you can necessarily point the finger at any one area. There's so many factors that can possibly be involved," said John Harju, interim administrator for the State Engineer's Groundwater Division.

For instance, the agency didn't know exactly how the casing of the Landry well was completed. And many artesian wells do lose production over time, Harju said. Coalbed methane activity can and does impact wells that are in the same coal aquifers, but in many cases, it is unclear whether coalbed methane is the cause of a water well problem.

"We've probably conducted 60 or so independent investigations. At a minimum, we are going to try to see what their fluid level is in their well. Sometimes we find differences from when it was completed, sometimes we don't.

"Sometimes it is not a water resource problem. Frankly, sometimes it's mechanical," Harju said.

Jill Morrison, staff member of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, said state and industry officials have long been aware that coalbed methane activity can disturb artesian wells. Earl Boardman , who had ranched in the area, and the Dube and Kretchman ranches, all had artesian wells that stopped flowing when coalbed methane activity approached, she said. Industry did step up in many of the cases, but it's difficult to get a well replaced without a surface use or "water well agreement."

"For anybody to be living without water, that's not just a terrible inconvenience. This is not a Third World country, but people are being put in that situation," she said.

Not only can artesian wells stop flowing, but in some cases the wells have come back to life only to blow water and gas, creating a significant safety hazard.

"We need to have some type of fund to make industry pay into primarily for water problems," Morrison said.