Marcellus Air Impact Uncertain
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
20 October 2010
By Tim Puko
Allegheny County health officials said Tuesday they have not decided
whether air quality monitoring is needed to oversee Marcellus shale gas
wells because of possible air pollution from the drilling process.
They have inspected the only three Marcellus wells drilled in the
county and found the amount of air pollution produced is so low that
they do not need permits under county regulations, manager Jim Thompson
said.
The county's Air Pollution Control Advisory Committee met yesterday in
part to hear from opponents of gas drilling about the impact of the
natural gas industry on air quality. Previously, most concern about
pollution from drilling for natural gas has been about its use of water.
The Group Against Smog and Pollution in Squirrel Hill asked the
committee to recommend that the county's Air Quality Program step in
because of air pollution they claim gas wells can cause.
Natural gas extraction emits ozone into the air, which is a special
problem for Pittsburgh because it has one of the worst ozone problems
in the country, said Joe Osborne, legal director of GASP.
Thompson agreed and noted that federal ozone standards are about to be
strengthened. Because of Marcellus gas drilling development in
surrounding counties, Allegheny County will have air problems from
Marcellus regardless of health officials' actions.
There were 1,721 permits issued for wells in the state's Marcellus
reserves from January through July and 822 were drilled, compared with
999 permits issued and 263 horizontal wells drilled in the same period
a year ago, state figures show. There was more activity in Washington
and Greene counties -- 273 permits issued and 148 wells drilled -- than
in eight other Southwest Pennsylvania counties combined, according to a
state report.
There is no consensus about the total pollution caused by the natural
gas industry.
Several shale-drilling regions have reported air pollution spikes, but
the industry is addressing that by updating its equipment, said Matt
Pitzarella, spokesman at Range Resources Inc. in Cecil, Washington
County.
"We know that's something (state regulators) are looking at, so our
role in this is going to be to continue to work with them," Pitzarella
said, adding that more permitting from a separate regulatory agency is
probably unnecessary.
The region consistently ranks among the nation's worst for air quality,
which regulators should consider, said George Leikauf, professor of
environmental health at the University of Pittsburgh. The state should
not have started permitting wells without a strategy to limit
emissions, including work limits during the summer when air quality is
at its worst, he said.
"It's an engineering problem. It's not insurmountable. But the way the
industry likes to do it now, it's cheap. It's always cheaper to
pollute," Leikauf said. "We can't absorb anything more."
Tim Puko can be reached at tpuko@tribweb.com or 412-320-7991.