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Craig Jensen poses outside his home near the community of Boulder in southwest
Wyoming.
Wyoming.
Small Town has Big Pollution Problem
May 12, 2008 6:00 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
by Lindsey Chapman
Boulder, Wyoming, population 75, has as much air pollution as some major metropolitan communities; natural gas development is primarily to blame.
Boulder, Wyoming, population 75, has as much air pollution as some major metropolitan communities; natural gas development is primarily to blame.
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Sublette County, Wyoming, holds two of the most productive natural gas fields in the Rocky Mountains: the Jonah Field and the Pinedale Anticline.
The local community, Boulder, with just 75 residents, has air pollution rivaling that of a large city. Wyoming’s air quality has fallen below healthy levels almost a dozen times since January 2008, and natural gas development is the primary cause.
Meanwhile, the EPA has just tightened its air quality controls.
Conservationists claim that energy development in the area is going too fast. Of the rapid drilling, Dwayne Meadows of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership said, “Right now any calls for moderate development are deemed un-American, and when restrictions are proposed, the industry pouts and threatens to leave.”
The energy industry says that it’s working on the ozone problem and drilling doesn’t need to be curtailed.
In fact, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently reviewing a proposal to add another 4,000 wells to the Pindedale Anticline. The energy industry says the additional development would help them to extract the natural gas and restore the land more quickly instead of taking several additional years.
One Wyoming landowner stated that although he’s received helpful royalties from having gas wells on his land, he does miss cleaner skies and fewer people. “I’d give it up right now if all them rigs moved,” he stated.
The BLM will make its decision on whether to allow additional drilling on the Pinedale Anticline in June 2008.
The local community, Boulder, with just 75 residents, has air pollution rivaling that of a large city. Wyoming’s air quality has fallen below healthy levels almost a dozen times since January 2008, and natural gas development is the primary cause.
Meanwhile, the EPA has just tightened its air quality controls.
Conservationists claim that energy development in the area is going too fast. Of the rapid drilling, Dwayne Meadows of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership said, “Right now any calls for moderate development are deemed un-American, and when restrictions are proposed, the industry pouts and threatens to leave.”
The energy industry says that it’s working on the ozone problem and drilling doesn’t need to be curtailed.
In fact, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is currently reviewing a proposal to add another 4,000 wells to the Pindedale Anticline. The energy industry says the additional development would help them to extract the natural gas and restore the land more quickly instead of taking several additional years.
One Wyoming landowner stated that although he’s received helpful royalties from having gas wells on his land, he does miss cleaner skies and fewer people. “I’d give it up right now if all them rigs moved,” he stated.
The BLM will make its decision on whether to allow additional drilling on the Pinedale Anticline in June 2008.
Headline Link: Ozone pollution in Wyoming
Ground-level ozone has surpassed healthy levels in Wyoming 11 times since January 2008. Taxpayers and members of the energy industry could be forced to pay millions of dollars to keep the pollution within federal limits.
Source: Associated Press
Background: Tighter air controls
In March 2008, the EPA announced that it was tightening air quality standards for ozone emissions. The new “8-hour standard” for ozone is 0.075 parts per million, from the previous 0.084 parts per million. The revision marked the first time in a decade that the standards have been changed.
Source: EPA
Related: More natural gas wells proposed for Wyoming
In December 2007, the Bureau of Land Management released a proposal that called for the drilling of 4,000 new natural gas wells in Sublette County, Wyoming. The Denver Post reports that the energy industry started a media campaign to show that it was “doing right by the people of Wyoming.” However after the EPA said that the new wells likely wouldn’t meet air quality standards, the “media blitz fell silent.”
Source: The Denver Post
The BLM is now reviewing 100,000 public comments received on the expanded drilling proposal. Reviewing all the comments will likely take until the end of May, and the agency won’t know the general public feeling about the proposal until then.
Source: cbs4denver.com
Reference: Ozone
In the upper level of the earth’s atmosphere, ozone creation is a naturally occurring process that happens when sunlight meets oxygen. In the lower atmosphere, chemicals released from industrial processes react to form ozone as well. Overexposure to ground-level ozone, however, can cause adverse health effects like wheezing, shortness of breath or nausea. Rural areas often have more ozone than larger cities because they are “downwind” of the major sources of ozone production.
Source: Earth Observatory
EnviroFlash is a service sponsored by the EPA that can provide periodic or even daily email alerts about the air quality where you live, or in the nearest “EnviroFlash” city.
Source: EnviroFlash
© 2008 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
