Two environmental activists working to further expose the release of methane and other volatile organic compounds roamed the Four Corners this week with an infrared camera, known as a Forward Looking Infrared.

Earthworks, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit “dedicated to protecting communities and the environment from the adverse impacts of mineral and energy development,” two years ago raised enough money to purchase the $100,000 camera, and ever since, it’s been in high demand by communities around the country.

When the Porter Ranch gas leak started in October, ultimately releasing 80,000 metric tons of methane and becoming the worst natural gas leak in U.S. history, Earthworks caught it on camera. The video went viral.

In August 2014, Earthworks members were watching Black Marlin Energy Service employees in Smiley, Texas, wash down industry trucks and flowback tanks that haul fracking and drilling waste when cops detained the group.

“The owner (of Black Marlin Energy Service) called us terrorists,” said Alan Septoff, strategic communications director for Earthworks.

Now, Septoff and Pete Dronkers, a Southwest representative with Earthworks, want to better understand the massive concentration of methane in the San Juan Basin as part of a bigger initiative to track the impacts of the oil and gas industry. The data is compiled on an interactive map on their website.

“It’s very hard to get people’s attention without visual proof there’s pollution in a community,” Septoff said. “But once they see it, it makes sense.”

Showing the invisible

Four miles off Colorado Highway 172, southeast of Durango, two natural gas processing plants – operated by Williams Partners L.P. and BP American Production Company – churn a mechanical din, but to the naked eye, release no emissions.

Dronkers heats up the FLIR camera, which has the appearance of a 1980s camcorder, and several massive plumes come into view. Later, an analysis shows the Williams plant emissions were steam and the BP emissions were natural gas.

“This is fairly typical of a plant this size,” Dronkers remarked. “We’ve never seen one that doesn’t have substantial emissions. What they can’t market, they burn off or vent. It’s systemic.”

The San Juan Basin is home to a number of processing plants, and in 2014, eight facilities produced more than 12.3 million pounds of production-related toxic waste, according to an Environmental Protection Agency report.

In their work this week, Septoff and Dronkers also are surveying outcroppings and abandoned wells and will work with the Navajo Nation to look for emissions there.

Methane hot spot

In 2014, satellite images captured a 2,500 square-mile “hot spot” of methane over the Four Corners, which according to the EPA, is the second largest producer of natural gas in the U.S.

Last spring, several prominent research institutes scoured the San Juan Basin measuring point sources to understand where the leaks were coming from. Though an official report will be released this spring or summer, NOAA research scientist Colm Sweeny said it became apparent a lot of the emissions were “avoidable.”

“When we look at the whole basin, there was no one single source that accounted for any more than roughly 10 percent of the total we’re seeing come out of the basin,” Sweeny said. “However, in flying over different sources, a lot of the emissions are avoidable.”

The energy industry, for its part, has long maintained that a variety of other sources, such as natural outcroppings and agriculture, make it too complicated to blame mineral extraction operations.

“We think it’s an unjustified knee-jerk reaction to say it’s all related to oil and gas,” said Wally Drangmeister with the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association.

Drangmeister said the industry looks forward to a comprehensive review on all the contributors of methane in the basin, “depending on the science involved.”

“In the meantime, the industry is rapidly moving toward all things that reduce the venting of methane and increase capture for sale,” he said.

Emissions crackdown

Michael Silverstein with the state’s Air Quality Control Commission said the detected methane levels do not pose a direct human health and safety impact but rather contribute potent greenhouse gas emissions associated with global climate change.

The crackdown on methane emissions, receiving unprecedented attention, is a reflection of that concern, with the EPA and Bureau of Land Management rolling out new and updated regulations on the industry.

Septoff said the federal agencies’ move is a step in the right direction, but given the scope of the problem, its ability to respond is stretched too thin.

“Communities shouldn’t be clamoring for us to come and check for pollution,” he said. “That’s the role of the government.”

jromeo@durangoherald.com

This story has been changed to correct the size of the methane hotspot.

This story was updated to correct information about the content of the emissions filmed during the tour with Earthworks. The Williams Partners L.P. plant emissions captured on the day of the tour were steam.