Saving Money and Lungs: Simple fixes could keep tons of drilling pollution out of the air.

Fort Worth Weekly

WEDNESDAY, 01 JUNE 2011 09:00 GAYLE REAVES

The Downwinders, in a release, called TCEQ’s proposed cuts in drilling-related pollution “modest” — the removal of 14 tons per day of VOC from the 100-plus tons per day now being emitted by gas industry activities. The release quoted TCEQ conclusions that gas industry pollution now accounts for more tons of VOC pollution annually than all the cars and trucks in the Dallas-Fort Worth area combined. But because the industry has grown so fast, the problem was not addressed in previous versions of the air quality plan.

“That’s a little crumb toward reducing VOCs in the shale,” said Schermbeck, who represents Downwinders on the oil and gas subcommittee of the clean-air panel. Jordan chairs the subcommittee.

Sattler’s report, Schermbeck said, makes it clear that those emissions could be reduced by up to 90 tons per day if the industry adopted practices that would quickly pay for themselves. Sattler, an environmental engineer at the University of Texas at Arlington, helped draw up earlier versions of the North Texas clean-air plan.

One of the easiest things for the industry to fix would also be one of the most rewarding in terms of reducing pollution, Schermbeck said. That would be for the state to require the industry to retrofit its equipment to get rid of the valves and other mechanisms that Schermbeck said “intentionally leak natural gas due to the way that they work.” Those valves, he said, are the “largest source of VOCs in the gas field.”

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