Barnett Shale gas producers caught with their hands in the cookie jar
Posted: in Natural Gas, Texas
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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Mike Norman wrote an excellent piece that shines a spotlight on industry tactics evident at the meeting of a committee advising the City of Fort Worth on a study to better characterize the emissions from natural gas production in the city.
I happen to serve on that committee, and here is my take on this week’s events.
The City of Fort Worth wants to conduct a study to obtain much-needed data on the actual emissions from gas drilling and production taking place in the city. Getting accurate and representative measurements of air emissions from an industry with more than 1,200 actively producing wells in the city (and 500 more already permitted) will be a challenging and costly undertaking. However, the need for such a study is indisputable, given the existing public concern stemming from limited studies conducted to date and the prospect that — according to city staff estimates provided to the committee — the current drilling activity might represent only 20 or 30 percent of the ultimate level of development.
If gas producers in Fort Worth want to put the air pollution coming from their facilities in context, as the Star-Telegram reported, it is their prerogative to do so. In fact, the largest gas producers are conducting their own such study right now. If for no other reason, an independent city-sponsored study is still important and should not duplicate industry’s project.
The city-funded study should focus on the basics: independently identifying and quantifying the pollutants released during the natural gas production process and assessing the resultant risk to city residents.
Natural gas producers should not impede the city’s efforts to better characterize their industry’s air pollution. After all, if industry’s claims are true that the natural gas production in Fort Worth does not produce harmful emissions, then they should have nothing to fear from a thorough and independent city-sponsored study.
13 Comments
great post. I think this needs to be fixed about gas prices
Not only were their hands in the cookie jar but they are also on the voting levers. The City of Ft. Worth, at Mayor Moncrief’s request, included these companies on the panel and gave them full voting rights. This study MUST be independent of the operators.
Paper cant wrap up a fire.
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