Fracking: New Aerial Research to Track Pollutants Above Western Fossil Fuel Development Zones

GarryRogers:

GR:  As always, we study the consequences of our actions after we act. We often do not attempt to determine effects before we act, and if we do try to predict consequences, the attempt is usually feeble and inadequate. Even more disappointing, the companies and government agencies involved rarely do any kind of follow-up research. And if they do, their results usually justify the action. For mining and energy development, the U. S. Bureau of Land Management is the biggest failure.

Originally posted on Summit County Citizens Voice:

Sensitive instruments to track methane, VOCs and other airborne toxins from New Mexico to North Dakota

The Four Corners area (red) is the major U.S. hot spot for methane emissions in this map showing how much emissions varied from average background concentrations from 2003-2009 (dark colors are lower than average; lighter colors are higher). Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Michigan.

Staff Report

FRISCO — A recent study of satellite data showing a hotspot of potent heat-trapping methane pollution over the Four Corners region makes it clear that we’re digging an ever-deeper global warming hole by fracking every last corner of the country.

As NOAA put it, “Vast regions west of the Mississippi River are under development for oil and gas extraction … but while one focus is on what comes out of the ground, NOAA and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences researchers and their colleagues are studying what escapes…

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