The Case For Local Control of GHG Pollution in 3 Easy Articles

It doesn’t often work out this way, but three related stories came over the transom recently that so eloquently spelled out the case for Dallas regulating the Greenhouse gas pollution from the gas industry, that we could have written them ourselves. but we didn’t have to. Downwinders and the Dallas Residents at Risk alliance support the idea of the City of Dallas requiring the  “mitigating”, or “off-setting”  of new and large air pollution emissions that come with gas drilling. For every ton of Greenhouse Gas emitted by a new well, or compressor, or storage tank, the operators would have to fund a project that would reduce that same amount of pollution in Dallas, so that there would be no net increases in pollution. So why do this? ARTICLE #1: The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review covers a local permit for a gas compressor station that could emit between 20 and 90 tons of smog-forming Nitrogen Oxide, also a Greenhouse Gas. The state already has almost 400 such facilities because of its location in the Marcellus Shale gas play. According to the article, “The stations, which compress gas to get it to move through pipelines, release air pollutants that compound the state’s long-standing ozone problem.” Gas drilling brings large amounts of new air pollution that isn’t covered under current regulations on either the state or federal level. Just one compressor station in Dallas could spew more Greenhouse Gas pollution than all the current industrial sources in the city combined. ARTICLE #2: The New Scientist gives voice to the growing perspective that the fastest way to affect climate change progress is to cut methane and soot emissions, not necessarily CO2. “Methane is a more important control on global temperature than previously realised. The gas’s influence is much greater than its direct effect on the atmosphere,” says Peter Cox, of the University of Exeter. Curbing methane, he adds, may now be the only way to prevent dangerous warming. “Oil and Gas sources in the US make-up 40% of all industrial methane pollution releases. Dallas has signed the US mayors agreement to reduce its Greenhouse Gas emissions. It won’t be ale to keep that commitment if it allows gas drilling without some form of mitigation or off-setting. ARTICLE #3: A piece from the San Luis Obispo Tribune that details how a local county air pollution control board is now regulating greenhouse gases for new housing and commercial developments. What are they doing? Requiring mitigation. “The staff estimates that of 1,142 projects countywide over the next 10 years, 56 would be large enough to require mitigations. Mitigations usually come in the form of sidewalks, bike paths and other amenities that discourage the use of cars.Other developments could be exempted if they are covered by a qualified local emission reduction strategy….” Dallas wouldn’t even be the first to think about GHG emission control on the local level, although it might be the first to apply it to the gas industry. Because that’s what the biggest new threat to air quality in Dallas is.