On June 28th, the La Plata County Commissioners considered and ultimately approved a proposal in support of the BLM’s efforts to adopt new natural gas production regulations. These regulations will focus on significantly reducing industrial methane leakage into the open air and into our climate system.

At the meeting, several citizens shared the belief that sloppy production systems can be tightened up to reduce methane leakage. In support of that claim we pointed to findings dating back to 2003 that reveal an unusually intense methane hot spot emanating from our Four Corners region.

Christi Zeller, executive director of the La Plata County Energy Council, spoke against adoption of the proposal and dismissed these concerns. She made a superficially persuasive case blaming our region’s geology as the underlying source of the “Four Corners Methane Hot Spot.”

However, that turns out to be more wishful thinking than fact. Over the past years, studies have increasingly pointed to preventable human causes. Now we have a study recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Frankenberg, et al., 2016) confirming 250 “methane hot spots involving gas wells, storage tanks, pipelines and processing plants.”

Based on advanced airborne visible/infrared spectrometer and hyperspectral thermal emission spectrometer imaging instruments that were flown over the region with an observation resolution down to one meter, they found few natural sources.

I believe the lesson for Zeller and her organization is that “oil business as usual” is no longer acceptable. Time to clean up.

Peter Miesler

Durango