Fwd: Earthworks investigation: fenceline monitoring fails to detect oil & gas emissions
Lorenda Volker
 | Lorenda Volker County Manager |
Commissioners' Office 200 W Oak St, Fort Collins, 80522 | 2nd Floor |
From: Doug Henderson <dhe...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Apr 17, 2023 at 11:06 AM
Subject: Earthworks investigation: fenceline monitoring fails to detect oil & gas emissions
To: Lea Schneider <schn...@co.larimer.co.us>, Cassie Archuleta <carch...@fcgov.com>, Lesli Ellis <ell...@co.larimer.co.us>, Kirk Longstein <klong...@fcgov.com>, Emily Fischer <e...@rams.colostate.edu>, Mindy Hill - CSU CEJ <mindy...@colostate.edu>
Cc: Larimer Co Board of Commissioners <bo...@larimer.org>, Larimer Alliance for Health & Safety <larimer-...@googlegroups.com>, Fred Kirsch <cfors...@gmail.com>, Megan Thorburn <mega...@yahoo.com>, Cory Carroll <c...@drcorycarroll.com>, John McDonagh <johnam...@mac.com>, Will Walters <wi...@walters-consulting.com>, Warren Snyder <pregnan...@hotmail.com>, Kevin Cross <jkev...@comcast.net>, Emily Gallichotte <egalli...@gmail.com>, Fort Collins City Council <cityl...@fcgov.com>, Stephanie Malin <Stephan...@colostate.edu>
To all who want clean air --
An investigation of fenceline air quality monitoring systems at
oil & gas sites found that fenceline monitoring almost
completely failed to detect oil & gas emissions:
"0 of the 22 OGI documented pollution events [documented by
Earthworks field investigations] were detected by the CEMs
[fenceline monitors] at surveyed sites." The report is here.
A video for the report is here.
Four different fenceline monitors were used at the oil & gas
sites investigated: "Fourteen sites had Project Canary-S monitors,
five sites had SENSE-IT SPOD monitors, two sites had Aeroqual
AQS-1 monitors and one site had SGS SmartSense monitors."
The air quality monitoring planned in Larimer County (funded
by the EPA grant “Enhancing Monitoring of Air Toxics and Air
Quality Education in Underserved Communities in Northern
Colorado'') proposes to use SENSE-IT SPOD monitors -- the same
kind that failed to detect pollution events in the
investigation.
Will the planned fenceline monitoring perform adequately in
Larimer County -- or will it fail to detect
pollution events and give inaccurate data
and false results?
For air quality monitoring data to be useful for achieving positive change in air quality and health-related impacts, the data needs to meet quality standards that ensure admissibility in administrative or judicial enforcement proceedings. For air quality and emissions data to be useful for enforcement, high-quality continuous concurrent meteorological data is also needed to correlate meteorological data with the emission data. Air quality data that proves inadequate for enforcement will be counter-productive; it will frustrate communities and other stakeholders that want positive change in air quality, possibly resulting in further erosion of public trust and increased public outrage directed at authorities including elected leaders; and result in failure to achieve positive change in air quality and health-related impacts, and the results expected in the RFA.
-------- Forwarded Message --------
| Subject: | Earthworks and Oil Change International Report on Project Canary |
|---|---|
| Date: | Mon, 17 Apr 2023 08:18:12 -0600 |
| From: | Andrew Klooster <aklo...@earthworksaction.org> |