Video Investigation of Gas Drilling Sites Reveals Invisible Air Pollution

Bay Daily
11/29/2011

A Chesapeake Bay Foundation infrared video investigation of natural gas drilling and processing sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia found invisible air pollution rising from almost three quarters of those examined.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) sent the video to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today with a letter explaining that the video shows that emissions from drilling sites are not being adequately controlled, and that proposed new EPA regulations for the drilling industry do not recognize the extent of the problem or a solution.  CBF's video provides important new evidence that "the industry is not sufficiently limiting the amount of leaks from drilling and processing operations,"Jon Mueller, CBF's Vice President for Litigation, wrote to the federal agency.

The video, which can be viewed by clicking here, demonstrates the need for a comprehensive federal study of the environmental and human health impacts of the growing amount of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the region’s Marcellus shale formation, according to two experts who reviewed CBF’s videotapes.

The images also raise troubling questions about exemptions for gas drilling rigs from air pollution control permits and regulation in federal and state law, the experts said.

New U.S. Fracking Emission Rules Unclear on Climate Impacts

Regulating emissions of methane from fracking to free natural gas will have important co-benefits in slowing climate change

By Tiffany Stecker and ClimateWire  | April 19, 2012 |4

U.S. EPA's pollution-cutting oil and gas rule will help cut emissions of a potent greenhouse gas without regulating it directly, say clean air advocates.

EPA released a final rule yesterday that requires new hydraulically fractured gas wells to use technology that will cut toxic substances and smog-forming pollution by 2015. As a co-benefit, the upgrades will also reduce methane -- a greenhouse gas with 30 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide -- by up to 1.7 million tons, said EPA Assistant Administrator for the Office of Air and Radiation Gina McCarthy.

When it comes to cutting methane emissions from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, wells, "[EPA] isn't aware of any other technologies that are effective as this rulemaking," McCarthy said.

"The standards are practical, flexible, affordable and achievable," she said.

The New Source Performance Standards will mandate that all new wells install "green" completions, technology that separates gas from liquid hydrocarbons from the flowback of wells to cut pollution. Well operators could also flare, or burn, waste gas instead of releasing it directly into the atmosphere.

But because methane is only a co-benefit, it is not an enforceable requirement, said Stuart Ross, communications director for the Clean Air Task Force.

"We know there's a lot more that can be done for methane," he said.

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