EnCana, Other Companies Pledge Money for Smog Monitoring in Wyoming

An article today in the Wyoming Casper Star Tribune reveals that six oil and gas companies, including EnCana, pledged $3.9 million toward monitoring air quality in the Pinedale area of southwestern Wyoming, which is beset with booming natural gas drilling. This monitoring is a crucial first step toward clean air in Wyoming.

Over 3,000 natural gas wells already exist in this area of Wyoming. Up to 10,000 new natural gas wells may be in store for the future. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has commented that this level of development will lead to significant increases in smog pollution. This prediction has not been far fetched: In 2005 and 2006, health standards for smog, or ozone, were exceeded 9 times in this region.

Air monitoring in Wyoming is crucial to holding the oil and gas industry accountable to clean air. Unfortunately, progress toward monitoring and accountability is lacking in other parts of the Rocky Mountain region. At the same time the oil and gas industry is ponying up to pay for air monitoring Wyoming, industry has yet to contribute one cent to do the same in Colorado. This, despite rising smog pollution throughout the state, including in Denver and western Colorado.

This fact is reprehensible given that companies like EnCana, who have pledged money for clean air in Wyoming, have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for illegal air pollution in Colorado. So far in 2006, EnCana was cited by the state three times for multiple air quality violations in western Colorado: once in March, once in April, and once in June. EnCana's track record of protecting clean air in Colorado is truly pitiful.

This double standard needs to change. The oil and gas industry, and particularly EnCana, need to start paying for air quality monitoring throughout the Rocky Mountain region, including Colorado.