New EPA Ozone Data Highlights Wyoming Success Story

(BOULDER – August 27, 2015) New data released today by the Environmental Protection Agency indicates air quality in one of Wyoming’s most active oil and gas drilling regions is improving. The data indicates ozone levels in the state’s Upper Green River Basin decreased to 64 parts per billion in recent years putting the region on track to again comply with national health-based standards.

“Today’s EPA determination shows that the strong actions taken by the State of Wyoming to improve air quality are working,” said Jon Goldstein, Senior Policy Manger with EDF’s Climate and Energy Program. “The state’s robust, sensible and cost-effective pollution control requirements are a success story that can be replicated by other regions in Wyoming and nationally that are facing smog problems from oil and gas development.”

In past years ozone measurements in the rural Wyoming town of Pinedale have rivaled levels in Los Angeles, leading to the area being listed as in nonattainment for ozone pollution under the federal Clean Air Act. This listing triggered a series of actions by the state to improve local air quality including passing nationally leading requirements to reduce emissions from new and modified oil and gas sources in the basin in 2013.

More recently, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead in May 2015 signed a new rule from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality that extends many of the same nationally leading pollution controls (including requiring quarterly, instrument based inspections for leaks) to existing sources of oil and gas pollution in the basin. This rule received unanimous approval from the state’s Environmental Quality Council and broad support from local citizens as well as the major producers in the basin.

“Wyoming serves as a great case study of what can happen when conservation groups and industry work together with the state to develop solutions for protecting air quality from the impacts of drilling,” said Bruce Pendery Chief Legal Counsel of Wyoming Outdoor Council. “However, the state must remain vigilant to ensure the area continues to enjoy healthy air quality.  The existing source rules recently passed by the Environmental Quality Council and signed by Governor Mead are a critical part of making sure this success story continues into the future and that the area can comply with Clean Air Act requirements for the next ten years and beyond.”