Her tale began in 2003 with the rapid development of coal-bed methane (CBM) in the Horseshoe Canyon formation, in central Alberta. CBM is an unconventional resource (the oilsands of natural gas) that requires more drilling and pipelines to develop than does old-fashioned natural gas. "It is a low-volume, high-capital-cost resource that tells you something about the maturity of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin," says Calgary-based Scotia Capital oil-and-gas analyst Peter Doig. "We are getting to the bottom of the natural-gas barrel."

Unlike conventional gas, CBM often sits in shallow coal seams, where much of the province's groundwater is located. (In fact, nearly 650,000 Albertans get their drinking water from aquifers.) As a "tight" or unco-operative gas, CBM also requires extensive hydraulic fracturing ("fracing") to get it flowing. Fracing uses massive volumes of fluids or gases to open up the formation to release more gas. Extensive CBM developments have sparked numerous groundwater controversies in the United States, where the resource now accounts for 9% of that nation's gas supply.

Alberta's industry claimed that the Canadian experience would be much different — and that the drilling of 50,000 CBM wells in the Horseshoe Canyon, over a 20-year period, would be well regulated. A groundwater workshop organized by the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment came to different conclusions. In 2002, as CBM companies arrived in Ernst's backyard, researchers at the conference issued a prescient warning to industry, government and landowners alike. Given that the resource lies near aquifers or requires the removal of water in order to be produced, their report concluded that CBM development shouldn't take place "without adequate baseline groundwater knowledge."

Ernst actually asked for that baseline data, but it was never provided. As a consequence, her water nightmare began, in 2003, when EnCana Corp. started an extensive CBM drilling program around the hamlet of Rosebud, just an hour's drive northeast of Calgary. First her water taps started to whirr and hiss. "I thought I was having plumbing problems," Ernst recalls. But then, she got distracted by another impact of CBM drilling. When the roaring noise of a nearby compressor station, operated by EnCana, began to disturb her, Ernst spent several months trying to get the company and the EUB to muffle it. (CBM gas has little pressure and needs to be vacuumed up with a network of compressor stations.)

Meanwhile, Ernst says, she thinks her water quality steadily declined. By the spring of 2005, even her two dogs refused to drink it. Whenever she bathed, she says, she got a bad skin burn "that felt like frostbite." She adds that she found strange materials in her water filters. After observing thick white smoke coming off the water one day, Ernst decided to fill up a plastic bottle and conduct an experiment. She waited five minutes and then put a match to it. "It blew like a rocket and melted the plastic container," she recalls. "I was in shock."

Private lab tests ordered and paid for by Ernst later revealed 44,800 parts per million of methane or 29.4 milligrams per litre. The United States Geological Survey considers anything above 28 milligrams per litre a dangerous public-health concern.

Ernst, however, couldn't report the matter to the EUB because it had just instructed its staff "to avoid any further contact" with her, on Nov. 24, 2005. The banishment arose from Ernst's efforts to secure reliable sound tests on the noisy compressor stations. After documenting two noise studies Ernst alleges were faulty (she says the microphones weren't properly placed, while the EUB contends the studies were done by a "reputable and independent" firm and that it offered to redo them at a time of her choosing with mics wherever she wanted), she fired off an e-mail to landowners, warning them that the regulator was planning to weaken its noise controls. The letter ended with a one-liner: "Someone said to me the other day: 'You know, I am beginning to think the only way is the Wiebo Way.'" Wiebo Ludwig, an evangelical cleric, began a $10-million vandalism campaign against the oil and gas industry, in the late 1990s, after sour gas allegedly poisoned members of his family.

Ernst, who doesn't own a gun and is dutifully employed by the oilpatch, was dumbfounded by the EUB's action and to this day calls it "intimidation." Davis Sheremata, an EUB spokesman, explains that "the decision to temporarily suspend contact with Ms. Ernst was unprecedented within the EUB and was done in response to a threat that was made involving our staff. Threats against our staff won't be tolerated." Ernst immediately dashed off a letter asking how a comment about Ludwig in a publicly circulated e-mail could be deemed "a criminal threat" to anyone. But it was returned unopened.

Ernst, however, wasn't the only resident of Alberta's booming CBM fields experiencing problems. A neighbour, Fiona Lauridsen, noted fizzing bubbles in well water, among other surprises. "The whole family suffered severe skin irritation in the shower on Christmas Eve," she says. Lab tests revealed levels of methane as high as 66 milligrams per litre. "It was an astonishing level," says Lauridsen.