PINEDALE, Wyo. — Every year, the Association of Air Pollution Control Agencies (AAPCA) announce agencies at the forefront of scientific advancement in air pollution control and this year the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Air Quality Division (DEQ-AQD) received the Best Practice Award for their development of the Wyoming Pond Emissions Calculator (WYPEC).
AAPCA’s newly released 2023 edition of “State Air Trends & Successes: The StATS Report,” nationally recognizes state and local air agencies that achieve significant improvements in air quality. In the report, Wyoming is listed for reducing emissions and implementing a technical advancement associated with the Clean Air Act.
“It goes without saying that these two go hand-in-hand,” AQD’s Administrator Nancy Vehr said. “The ingenuity and innovation of DEQ’s air quality team has played a large role in the reduction in emissions for Wyoming.”
Utah State University describes this Excel-based calculator as a tool to estimate emissions based on pond characteristics, meteorology and the water concentrations of organic compounds. WYPEC was developed after hundreds of direct emission measurements from produced water ponds in Wyoming and Utah.
When elevated ozone levels in the Upper Green River Basin were discovered in 2005, the AQD began researching potential emission sources. The AQD began conducting an air quality study of commercial oilfield waste disposal ponds in the UGRB, as part of the UGRB Ozone Strategy to curb ozone emissions. As recorded by the AQD, Wyoming’s UGRB wintertime ozone has exceeded 70 parts per billion (ppb) over the past 2 decades.
According to Wyoming Outdoor Council scientific research, ozone is a seasonal phenomenon that occurs when the right combination of weather patterns, surface reflectivity from snow and ice and emissions, like nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds (known as VOCs), all combine to create ozone molecules. When the ground-level ozone concentration exceeds 70 ppb, it can have harmful respiratory effects and may cause lung damage in people who breathe the polluted air.
The AQD designated commercial oil waste disposal facilities as potential sources of VOCs. Unlike an oil and gas facility stack, emissions from Wyoming disposal ponds were found to be more difficult to measure, according to the AQD.
According to AQD’s New Source Review Program Manager Andrew Keyfauver, it took several years for the study and development of a Wyoming specific tool for measuring emissions from ponds.
“We collected data from air and water sampling events at multiple facilities to develop models for different chemical classes,” Keyfauver said. “The results were a tool that fits Wyoming’s specific needs and provides information relevant to Wyoming’s air quality.”
Vehr said that all nominations for this national award underwent a rigorous review by the Association’s Best Practices Committee and Board of Directors.
“I am very proud of the AQD team that worked relentlessly to find a plausible solution for improving Wyoming’s air quality. Their innovation and dedication are to be commended. The award speaks for itself,” Vehr said.
Keyfauver received the Best Practice Award on behalf of the DEQ-AQD.
