Air Quality Concerns Threaten Natural Gas's Image

Still, Robinson worries that in the rush to produce the gas the country isn't giving enough attention to the health risks.

"They're lots of examples of this through human history where we go, 'Hum, maybe we didn't really want to do that,'" Robinson says.

Robinson points to mounting evidence of cumulative damage to air quality from natural gas production elsewhere in the country.

Wyoming's Sublette County is home to a booming gas development — and not much else besides antelopes and sage grouse. For 13 days this winter, ozone levels there were unhealthy.

Utah's Uintah Basin also started having spikes of unhealthy air. Some studies show that new gas production could be on the way to causing air pollution problems in portions of Colorado, Texas and Louisiana as well.

But gas industry officials downplay the threat of air pollution from production operations, saying it pales compared with the pollution eliminated when electric companies retire old coal-fired power plants and replace them with natural gas power plants.

"I reject the notion of widespread or serious pollution," says Kathryn Klaber, executive director of the producers' trade group, Marcellus Shale Coalition.

Klaber acknowledges that now that Marcellus is growing so large, it does create some air pollution.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/21/137197991/air-quality-concerns-threaten-natural-gas-image?ft=1&f=1003

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