Wyoming DEQ to host meeting in Pinedale on winter ozone studies

DEQ to host air quality meeting in Pinedale

PINEDALE, Wyo. — More study is needed to help state regulators determine the best ways to reduce wintertime smog problems in the Upper Green River Basin, a Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality administrator told a public meeting here Thursday.

The smog results from high levels of ozone. The ozone results from air pollution from the area’s substantial gas development combined with certain weather conditions, such as snow on the ground, sunshine and temperature inversions.

Smog usually is associated with warm weather and urban areas. The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality and others have been studying western Wyoming’s rather unusual ozone problem since 2004.

Dave Finley, head of the department’s Air Quality Division, briefed about 60 local residents, environmentalists and industry officials on the agency’s ongoing studies in the Upper Green River Basin.

“We’ve studied this almost to death. We’re pretty certain what conditions have to be in order for ozone to form and for it to stick around,” Finley said.

The department continues to both maintain an inventory of known pollution sources in the basin as well as monitor pollution at stations set up in and around the Pinedale Anticline and Jonah gas fields, he said.

Still, the department doesn’t exactly know the best ways to require changes in activity — for the gas industry, primarily — when conditions are likely to produce smog.

“What are the emission levels that will prevent this from happening?” Finley said. “In order to do that, we need computer models. The computer models we have today don’t work in the dead of winter in the Upper Green River Basin.”

Late last year, the department convened a group of experts on ozone at Laramie County Community College to provide recommendations for addressing the Upper Green River Basin smog, Finley said.

The department got a couple hundred recommendations, he said.

“We’re not done analyzing all of the information that came to us in that technical forum,” Finley said. “We heard a ton of stuff.”

The meeting occurred ahead of plans by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to lower the nationwide limit for ozone pollution. A new EPA standard for ozone — between 60 and 70 parts per billion — is expected by Aug. 31.

Gas industry officials say they’ve taken significant steps to reduce air pollution.