Data Report for Monitoring at Six West Virginia Marcellus Shale Development Sites using NETL’s Mobile Air Monitoring Laboratory (July–November 2012)

Technical Report · Thu Jun 16 00:00:00 EDT 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1330216· OSTI ID:1330216

Pekney, Natalie J. ^[1]; Reeder, Matthew ^[2]; Veloski, Garret A. ^[1]; Diehl, J. Rodney ^[3]

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1. National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, (United States)
2. National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, (United States); Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United Stat
3. Indiana Univ., Bloomington, IN (United States)

The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Office of Oil and Gas was directed according to the Natural Gas Horizontal Well Control Act of December 14, 2011 (West Virginia Code §22-6A) to conduct studies of horizontal well drilling activities related to air quality. The planned study, “Noise, Light, Dust, Volatile Organic Compounds Related to Well Location Restrictions,” required determination of the effectiveness of a 625 ft minimum set-back from the center of the pad of a horizontal well drilling site to the nearest occupied dwelling. An investigation was conducted at seven drilling sites by West Virginia University (WVU) and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to collect data on dust, hydrocarbon compounds and on noise, radiation, and light levels. NETL’s role in this study was to collect measurements of ambient pollutant concentrations at six of the seven selected sites using NETL’s Mobile Air Monitoring Laboratory. The trailer-based laboratory was situated a distance of 492–1,312 ft from each well pad, on which activities included well pad construction, vertical drilling, horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and flaring, with the objective of evaluating the air quality impact of each activity for 1–4 weeks per site. Measured pollutants included volatile organic compounds (VOCs), coarse and fine particulate matter (PM₁₀ and PM_2.5, respectively), ozone, methane (CH₄), carbon dioxide (CO₂), carbon isotopes of CH₄ and CO₂, organic carbon (OC), elemental carbon (EC), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂).

• Research Organization: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• OSTI ID: 1330216
• Report Number(s): NETL-TRS-4-2016; TRN: US1700437
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

03 NATURAL GAS
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
METHANE
CARBON DIOXIDE
SULFUR DIOXIDE
WELL DRILLING
WEST VIRGINIA
CARBON
VOLATILE MATTER
VISIBLE RADIATION
SHALES
AIR QUALITY
AIR POLLUTION MONITORING
NATURAL GAS
NITROGEN OXIDES
CARBON ISOTOPES
CONCENTRATION RATIO
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
PARTICULATES
POLLUTANTS
ABUNDANCE
CONSTRUCTION
FLARING
OZONE
EXPERIMENTAL DATA