A study commissioned by our friends at the Clean Air Council says the Barto Compressor Station in Penn Township in Lycoming County is causing nitrogen dioxide pollution 278 percent over the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS).
The NAAQS standard was established to protect the public from adverse health effects associated with short-term exposure to elevated levels of oxides of nitrogen, including increased asthma symptoms, difficult controlling asthma and increases in respiratory illnesses. Nitrogen dioxide also contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone which can lead to a variety of health problems.
Pennsylvania law gives the DEP the authority to do modeling for larger compressor stations, but they are not doing so. Thanks to the CAC for getting one done on the Barto.
DEP is monitoring for oxides of nitrogen at one location in the Commomwealth, the Houston Processing Plant in Washington County. It is interesting that the Houston Plant is one of a very few natural gas facilities in the state that utilizes electric powered compressor engines, instead of, like Barto, engines powered by natural gas. Electric compressor engines do not emit oxides of nitrogen because combustion is occuting off site, at a distant power plant.
RDA member Allison Rupert says, "I am horrified after reading the results of the...Modeling Report on the Barto Compressor Station, which is located about 1200 feet from our home. DEP has the authority - and I hope it will - to prevent my family and my neighbors in Penn Township from becoming a 'sacrifice zone.'"
Former RDA Board President Drake Saxton, who lives five miles from the Barto said," I find [the results of this report] unacceptable and undesirable. The technology to reduce these kinds of emissions exists. We don't have to reinvent the wheel - it's already there. These companies have demonstrated that they are not going to employ it because of cost."
Texas Oilmen Going WIMBY?
