Each year the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection (DEP) collects air emissions data for the natural gas industry as required by PA’s Air Pollution Control Act. Yesterday the DEP issued a comprehensive report for calendar year 2013. It’s no surprise that several categories of air pollutants increased–the more wells you drill, the more activity, the more air pollution. What *is* surprising is that two categories of air pollution decreased: carbon monoxide (CO) and methane (CH4). You also need to throw this into the mix: The way the information is collected and reported changed in 2013. The DEP began requiring data from compressor stations supporting coalbed methane wells. That is, they grew the pie–the data is sort of apples and oranges. And still the CO and CH4 numbers went down! Below is the DEP summary of the numbers, broken out by type of air pollution…
