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What's
Happening
Sublette County, Wyoming has become the
epicenter of an increasingly controversial clash between life
long citizens of the area and energy companies eager to exploit
the estimated 13 trillion cubic feet of natural gas beneath the surface.
At the heart of the contest is citizens' growing displeasure over
environmental damage being done and
industry's insistence that the damage is transient. Adding to the
battle has been the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) record of issuing
formal documents admitting to
such damages but characterizing them only as "...causes for concern."
The environmental impact most threatening to continuation of business as
usual by the energy
industry is that of diminishing air quality because it is enforceable through
Federal environmental law.
What One Person is Doing
In 2003, as an amateur astronomer, I realized that the night sky had lost
some clarity compared to ten years earlier. My investigations led
to the realization that this had
evolved in
parallel with the upturn of activity in the Jonah gas field. I
thus decided to draw upon my experience as a former United States Air
Force optical physicist and
embarked upon a personal project to apply
optical spectroscopy to the task
of evaluating what form the emissions from gas development were taking
and how they are
degrading local visibility. This point is of high
importance because I found that for up to 50% of any year, winds appear
to blow toward four Class I air sheds defined in
the Federal Clean Air
Act.
These Web Site Chronicles
This web site presents a considerable volume of work and its
results regarding impacts on air quality as well as my efforts to
address the growing problem constructively.
Visitors to this web
site may eventually notice that most data and imagery presented in the
various pages are primarily from 2004. By the end of 2003, I had
acquired my
miniature spectrometer and in 2004, I pursued an intensive
field measurement program during which I observed, photographed, and
obtained spectra on 25 well completion
flares. In that effort, I
drove 3000 miles and expended personal funds on the order of $6000.
I approached industry, individuals, government, and environmental groups
for
grant assistance but was unsuccessful. As a result, I was
forced to end field investigations and confine my efforts closer to
home.
My situation did improve somewhat when in April 2005, a local group
calling itself the Wagon Wheel Information Project provided $3100
in funding. This group consisted
of a handful of locals who had
banded together in the 1970's to oppose federal plans to detonate
nuclear explosives in what is now the Jonah field for the purpose of
conducting experimental nuclear fracing.
I have kept this fund in strict reserve until a suitable use for it
could be determined. That use has revealed itself in the form of a
project to establish a private ozone monitor
station on my home site.
I have researched all EPA protocols for proper methods of design and
implementation of the site and find no obvious technical obstacles.
However,
the administrative protocols far outnumber the technical
elements and are virtually impossible to meet 100 percent. I have
been warned by government insiders that this will
be how government
regulators disallow any resulting data. Nevertheless, this project
has attracted the attention of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and the
Wilderness
Society who have provided additional funding to bring the
project into being. However, I will still be required to invest
additional personal funds so the project will be tightly
constrained for
monetary reasons. If this project is successful, its details will
be added to the material in this web site.
Perry Walker
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