The Fort Worth, TX, city council is considering whether to use city funds to retest ambient air quality around the city’s natural gas drilling sites to determine whether drilling and production are contributing to the city’s air pollution.

Council members and city staff disagree about the results released last month by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which reported that most of the air emissions at 94 Barnett Shale drilling sites tested were “well below” acceptable exposure limits (see Daily GPI, Jan. 28). Two of 94 sites tested had “extremely high” levels of benzene, which were corrected by the companies, and 19 other sites had benzene levels above the state’s recommended level for long-term exposure.

A separate test by Fort Worth officials last summer didn’t detect any ambient air problems at sites within the city limits. However, private tests also conducted last summer apparently detected high levels of carbon disulfide. Follow-up tests that were privately funded also were said to detect carbon disulfide and other pollutants at several drilling sites.

Some of the council members and Fort Worth’s mayor think more testing is needed.

“It’s time we had some answers,” Mayor Mike Moncrief said at a city council meeting last Tuesday. While Moncrief thinks that approving gas drilling permits should continue, council member Kathleen Hicks said the city should reconsider until it can determine the extent of any air quality issues.

If evidence of a pollution problem is found, the council could more stringently regulate gas drillers. Following concerns by neighborhood associations and other stakeholders, Fort Worth enacted a gas drilling ordinance in late 2008 (see Daily GPI, Dec. 16, 2008).

The city sits on about 6% of the Barnett Shale field and the city and its residents welcomed gas drilling and the associated royalty payments when producers first arrived about 10 years ago. Over a 20-year period, Fort Worth could earn as much as $1 billion from bonuses and royalties received from drilling operations.

A spokesman with the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council said drillers already were planning to pay for more testing. If more stringent rules were enacted by the city, “it always increases the cost of the operation and that has an impact,” he said.

In related news, XTO Energy Inc. on Tuesday withdrew a request before the city council requesting permission to drill several gas wells on a site considered by some residents to be too close to an elementary school (see Daily GPI, Jan. 19). XTO said it instead will drill four wells on nearby sites that won’t require approval by the council.

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