NOAA Air Study Data - Erie Colorado

Colorado Govenor Hickenlooper issues executive order on fracking

FOX31
2/29/2012

DENVER — Gov. John Hickenlooper, already having irked Colorado environmentalists this week for voicing a radio ad in favor of hydraulic fracturing on behalf of the state’s oil and gas industry, issued an executive order Wednesday afternoon creating a task force to determine whether the state or local cities and counties have control over fracking operations in the state.

“This is an important step to better define state and local jurisdiction regulatory structures as Colorado’s oil and gas industry continues to grow,” Hickenlooper said in a statement.

“We want to protect public health, the environment and wildlife and to avoid duplication and conflict between different regulations of oil and gas activities. We expect these efforts to also help foster a climate that encourages responsible development and enhances existing cooperation and coordination between state and local government.”

The order comes after the town of Erie voted Tuesday night to draft an emergency 180-day moratorium on fracking, a common process used by oil and gas companies to loosen mineral reserves for extraction by shooting a mix of water, sand and chemicals more than mile beneath the surface.

The town had rejected a moratorium proposal a month ago, but reversed course based largely on a report last week from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that showed levels of propane — a chemical used in fracking — 10 times higher in Erie than in other cities.

Environmentalists have long argued that fracking is contaminating groundwater and causing health problems for people living nearby.

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Get a clue Governor, your statements appear wrong in that, that this rogue oil and gas industry is not causing groundwater contaminations, air quality degradation etc... 

OVERTURN THE FEDERAL EXEMPTIONS THE INDUSTRY DOESN'T HAVE TO ABIDE BY AND LET'S SEE IF THE INDUSTRY CAN OPERATE! 

Enough already!

Erie trustees vote to draft emergency fracking moratorium

Daily Camera
2/28/2012
By  John Aquilar


NOAA air pollution study serves as prime catalyst for board's change of heart

ERIE -- In a dramatic turnaround late Tuesday evening, Erie trustees unanimously voted to craft an emergency ordinance to temporarily ban new gas drilling permits from being filed with the town.

The ordinance will come before the town's elected leaders at their next meeting, on March 13, and, if voted on as an emergency ordinance, would require six votes to pass. It would go into effect immediately and last 180 days.

If it passes, Erie would join Longmont and Boulder County in imposing a moratorium on new drilling operations.

Mayor Pro Tem Cheryl Hauger brought the motion to the table late in the evening, saying that a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that came to light last week showing that levels of propane -- a pollutant associated with oil and gas drilling and production -- are 10 times higher in Erie than they are in cities such as Houston and Los Angeles was instrumental in prompting her to give a moratorium another try.

Just last month, the board voted against imposing a moratorium.

Several trustees mentioned the NOAA study as a primary reason for changing their opinion on the safety of drilling and hydraulic fracturing, an extraction process known as fracking that uses a sand-water-chemical mix to loosen gas from underground rock.

Trustee Ronda Grassi said that a moratorium would provide time for the town to work out issues with oil and gas operators in Erie, though she cautioned it wouldn't stop companies already drilling and fracking here. She said Erie doesn't currently have an application for a drilling permit in front of it.

"A moratorium won't change one thing today -- they are allowed to drill in our community and they won't stop,"

she said.

The town is in the midst of drafting a set of rules drilling operators would be expected to follow, including air and water monitoring, larger wellhead setbacks and noise, light and dust mitigation. Gas drilling is regulated by the state and municipalities are limited in what they can control operationally.

Trustee Joe Carnival said...

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Bombshell Study: High Methane Emissions Measured Over Gas Field “May Offset Climate Benefits of Natural Gas”

ThinkProgress

By Joe Romm on Feb 8, 2012 at 6:29 pm

Air sampling by NOAA over Colorado Finds 4% Methane Leakage, More Than Double Industry Claims

Natural-gas operations could release far more methane into

the atmosphere than previously thought. [Source: Nature]

How much methane leaks during the entire lifecycle of unconventional gas has emerged as a key question in the fracking debate. Natural gas is mostly methane (CH4). And methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than (CO2), which is released when any hydrocarbon, like natural gas, is burned.
Even without a high-leakage rate for shale gas, we know that “Absent a Serious Price for Global Warming Pollution, Natural Gas Is A Bridge To Nowhere.”
But the leakage rate does matter. A major 2011 study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) concluded:

The most important result, however, in accord with the above authors, is that, unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2%, substituting gas for coal is not an effective means for reducing the magnitude of future climate change.

The industry has tended kept most of the data secret while downplaying the leakage issue. Yet I know of no independent analysis that finds a rate below 2%, including one by the National Energy Technology Laboratory, the DOE’s premier fossil fuel lab.
Now, as the journal Nature reports, we finally have some actual air sampling measurements, and they appear to confirm the higher estimates put forward by Cornell professor Robert Howarth:

When US government scientists began sampling the air from a tower north of Denver, Colorado, they expected urban smog — but not strong whiffs of what looked like natural gas. They eventually linked the mysterious pollution to a nearby natural-gas field, and their investigation has now produced the first hard evidence that the cleanest-burning fossil fuel might not be much better than coal when it comes to climate change.

Led by researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Colorado, Boulder, the study estimates that natural-gas producers in an area known as the Denver-Julesburg Basin are losing about 4% of their gas to the atmosphere — not including additional losses in the pipeline and distribution system. This is more than double the official inventory, but roughly in line with estimates made in 2011 that have been challenged by industry. And because methane is some 25 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, releases of that magnitude could effectively offset the environmental edge that natural gas is said to enjoy over other fossil fuels.

Methane is 25 times more efficient than CO2 trapping heat over 100 year — but it is 100 times more efficient than CO2 trapping heat over two decades.

“If we want natural gas to be the cleanest fossil fuel source, methane emissions have to be reduced,” says Gabrielle Pétron, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA and at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and first author on the study, currently in press at the Journal of Geophysical Research. Emissions will vary depending on the site, but Pétron sees no reason to think that this particular basin is unique. “I think we seriously need to look at natural-gas operations on the national scale.”

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Eat this data @TishaSchuller - COGA