CSU researchers met with Garfield County commissioners today to discuss plans for a $1.76 million, three-year research project examining emissions connected to the practice of hydraulic fracturing.
The plans have been in the works since last September, with a The idea is to look at emissions during various stages of well development: well drilling, hydraulic fracturing and flowback, or the recovery of fracturing fluids.
鈥淥ur main objectives in the design study are to quantify the emission of chemical compounds鈥攅specially volatile organic compounds during well-development operations,鈥� said CSU Head Jeffrey Collett.
Scientists will measure air around sites in both hot and cold temperatures, and collect samples from natural gas wells operated by different companies.
Researchers plan to use a 鈥減lume tracker vehicles鈥� to measure both downwind and upwind emissions from natural gas wells. Elsewhere canisters and other air samplers will be used.
County Commissioners discussed providing as much as $1 million in funding from an oil & gas mitigation fund on Monday. The details will be mapped out at a meeting in September. Meantime, gas industry members have preliminarily pledged about $800,000 in matching funds for the study.
The proposed project will not directly consider potential health impacts of emissions from natural gas wells. But researchers 鈥渨ill provide a solid basis for other investigators to make a robust health impact assessment.鈥�
. A pilot study launched in 2008 collected air near eight wells.
But the report quickly became a political football. John Martin, a Garfield County commissioner told NPR:
Both sides were fighting. They wanted to use this document in both arguments 鈥� that it didn't hurt anything and that it killed everyone.
Colorado State University, along with Air Resource Specialists Inc., is hoping to stay away from political issues that have plagued previous efforts to examine emissions. In a press release last Friday CSU described its proposal as 鈥渘on-partisan鈥�:
Increasingly, industry leaders, environmental groups and communities are looking to Colorado State to provide credible, non-partisan solutions to the complexities facing the oil and natural gas industry and the general public including issues related to water, land use, production, air, policy and cultural/social changes.
Results are expected in the fall of 2015.
