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Current Issue
Issue No. 31 July/August 2010 |
 News from the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council
By Ed Ireland, Executive Director
Air Pollution Issues in the Barnett Shale
In the first part of 2009, there was a major shift in Barnett Shale issues when the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF – www.edf.org) funded a study about air emissions. With that study, environmental issues became the focus of virtually all criticisms regarding natural gas operations in the Barnett Shale. I wrote an article pointing out the errors in that study, which was first published in the Fort Worth Basin Oil and Gas magazine in May 2009. The Wall Street Journal recently characterized that article as an attack on the EDF study. I didn’t consider it an attack as much as an attempt to point out that the study had a number of flaws in methodology, which called into question the conclusions.
The same can be said for two recent studies produced by Flower Mound, Texas- based Wolf Eagle Environmental Engineers and Consultants (Wolf Eagle – www.wolfleagleenvironmental.com) that reported elevated levels of various organic compounds and, in some cases, other chemicals including benzene, and attributed the source of those levels to natural gas wells. The first study was conducted on private property, referred to as “Deborah’s Farmstead” in the Westworth Village south of Lake Worth in Fort Worth, and east of Carswell Air Force Base, now named Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base. This led the City of Fort Worth to commission the Carrollton, Texas-based firm Industrial Hygiene and Safety Technology, Inc. (IHST – www.ihst.com) to evaluate that study. IHST found that the methodology employed by the privately-funded study was not scientifically sound and therefore could not support their conclusions.
Dish, Texas, a small town in Denton County north of Dallas and east of Denton, also commissioned Wolf Eagle to conduct an air analysis. Air samples were collected and the results were reported to show elevated levels of benzene and other chemicals. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ, entered the picture and collected its own air samples. TCEQ decided to make public statements that high benzene levels were found at some well sites but said further sampling was needed to determine if elevated benzene levels were “one in two, one in 100, or one in 1000 well sites.” TCEQ said its results would be released by the end of 2009 or the first part of 2010.
This information void paved the way for unsubstantiated speculation about the problem of air pollution from Barnett Shale gas wells. The void was quickly filled by some members of the press and anti-drilling groups. The owner of Deborah’s Farmstead called for a moratorium on new drilling permits pending more test results. Texas Sen. Wendy Davis called for the Lieutenant Governor of Texas to order a study of “the various environmental impacts related to the gas production processes in the Barnett Shale area and other similar fields.” The Fort Worth League of Neighborhoods organized a town hall meeting in November to discuss the issue. A local radio station reported that a “state agency says that natural gas wells all across North Texas are spewing cancer-causing chemicals.” The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that “tests by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality reveal high levels of benzene, a carcinogen, near some wells.”
What the TCEQ will reveal in its next report is unknown, but there are some facts that we do know. First, “dry” natural gas is almost pure methane and contains only extremely small trace amounts of other chemicals. If any organic compounds are measured at concentrations that would be expected to result in adverse health effects at natural gas well sites, it will be at well sites that produce “wet” natural gas, where the most likely source will be condensate storage tanks, although the mere presence of condensate tanks does not mean that various organic compounds and benzene levels will be elevated. Second, the majority of Barnett Shale natural gas wells in Fort Worth and the DFW Metroplex are dry wells that produce no condensate and therefore do not even have condensate storage tanks on well sites. Click on the link below to see a table of statistics based on actual production of all Barnett Shale natural gas wells in the nine-county EPA DFW Nonattainment Area in July 2009, along with the rest of this column, which contains several charts and tables.
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