EPA asked to improve air standards at Marcellus Shale wells
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Demonstrators march on Tuesday outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center during the hearing.
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Some living near Marcellus Shale gas wells and environmental organizations called for fast adoption of strong, health-protective, air pollution emissions standards for oil and gas well drilling operations at a daylong U.S. Environmental Protection Agency public hearing in Pittsburgh Tuesday.
All but a dozen of the 108 speakers who signed up to speak at the hearing in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, voiced support for the new regulations that use proven technology and existing best practices within the drilling industry to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds by 95 percent from hydraulically fractured, or "fracked," wells and 25 percent industrywide.
The few drilling industry speakers asked for an additional two months to comment.
The proposed rules would also reduce emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 3.4 million tons and air toxics, such as benzene, a human carcinogen, by 38,000 tons, or almost 30 percent.
"The EPA recognizes what many citizens living near oil and gas facilities have known for a long time: Fossil fuel production is dirty and harmful to health," said Nadia Steinzor of Earthworks, an national environmental organization. "The new rules would require companies to take measures to reduce emissions and require that they be held accountable for damage, while equally protecting all Americans from pollution."
Janet McIntyre, a resident of rural Butler County, testified that air emissions from 10 Marcellus Shale wells within a mile and a half of her home, plus a compressor station and three fracking waste holding ponds, have put into the air a bad smell that has affected 30 people in her neighborhood.
"If I go outside for more than five minutes, I get a severe headache and burning eyes and skin and a metallic taste on my lips," she said. "The air is chocking me and my neighbors, too. I feel it's coming from those fracking waste ponds around me."
Deborah Nardone, director of the Sierra Club's Natural Gas Reform Campaign, handed the three EPA hearing officials printed sets of 23,560 comments she said express concern about pollution from fracking operations in the Marcellus Shale play and other shale gas plays across the country.
First Published September 28, 2011 12:00 am
