Southwest Wyoming Ozone Air Pollution Problem

This is a bit of a surprise:

BOULDER, Wyo. (AP) - There isn't anything metropolitan about this tiny unincorporated town in southwest Wyoming, where a few single-family homes and a volunteer fire station stand against a skyline of snowcapped mountains.

But Boulder, with a population of just 75 people, has one thing in common with major metropolitan areas: air pollution thick enough to pose health risks.

"Used to be you could see horizon to horizon, crystal clear. Now you got this," said Craig Jensen as he gestured to a pale blue sky that he says is not as deeply colored as it used to be. "Makes you wonder what it's going to do to the grass, the trees and the birds."

The pollution, largely from the region's booming natural gas industry, came in the form of ground-level ozone, which has exceeded healthy levels 11 times since January and caused Wyoming to issue its first ozone alerts. Now the ozone threatens to cost the industry and taxpayers millions of dollars to stay within federal clean-air laws.

Sublette County is home to one of the largest natural gas reserves in North America, and it is dotted with hundreds of gas wells to supply the nation's growing demand for cleaner-burning fuel. Thousands more wells are planned for the future.

But pollution from vehicles and equipment in the gas fields - along with dust, weather and geography - have raised ozone to a level that rivals those of big cities in the summertime.

Wyoming's ozone problem comes at a time when the federal government has strengthened its ozone restrictions to better protect public health. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency set a new ozone standard of 75 parts per billion, down from 80 parts per billion.

The peak eight-hour average for ozone near Boulder reached 122 parts per billion on Feb. 21 and 102 parts per billion on March 11. By comparison, the Los Angeles area hit a peak average of 152 parts per billion last summer, and Denver recorded a peak of 98 parts per billion last July.

Failure to meet federal air-quality standards could result in mandatory pollution-cutting measures ranging from restricting wood-burning stoves in homes to placing limits on the booming oil and gas industry.

When I was at the University of Utah and working briefly with the Sierra Club there, and also later, while working here in Sacramento, I became familiar with the Salt Lake City ozone problem. Compared to the California ozone problem (with its importance of long-distance transport), the Salt Lake City problem (and likely, by extension, the problem with ozone at other Great Basin locations) is comparatively simple. Rapid oxidation of hydrocarbon precursors, with ozone maxima closely tracking the sun's elevation angle, with maxima at, or just after, noon.

To be having these problems, at this rural location, the natural gas extraction industry must be spurting vast amounts of natural gas directly into the air. Get ahold of that problem, and the air pollution problem disappears, presto.

So, what are we waiting for?