Mar. 11—A state panel began deliberating Thursday on a proposed rule to curtail oil field emissions that cause ground-level ozone, a pollutant that can harm public health and the environment.
The Environmental Improvement Board started vetting the proposed "ozone precursor rule" aimed at reducing pollutants emitted during oil and gas operations that can impair breathing and, in higher doses, damage the heart and lungs.
In what is likely to be a dayslong deliberation, the board is picking through a hefty draft rule that contains proposed provisions from the state Environment Department, industry groups, conservationists and other concerned parties.
State and federal officials have said their monitoring devices show nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — known as VOCs — which form ozone, have increased at oil and gas sites in recent years and must be reduced.
The rule would apply to counties where these pollutants reach at least 95 percent of the federal ambient air quality standard.
So far, Chaves, Doña Ana, Eddy, Lea, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Juan and Valencia counties have been pegged as meeting that threshold.
One of the first discussions involved whether Chaves and Rio Arriba counties should be included. Industry attorneys dispute the state's authority to apply the rule in those counties, arguing they lack the air-monitoring systems needed to gauge the pollutants.
The board kept them on the list.
"I've heard a lot of 'We want a level playing field' from industry," board member William Honker said. "But in this case, it sounds like some of the industry doesn't want a level playing field in those two counties in terms of what the requirements are."
Honker said he wasn't fond of partitioning counties for the rule. Airsheds aren't like watersheds in that one never knows where the pollution will flow, making boundaries arbitrary and political, Honker said.
But under the current system, he supports the Environment Department's recommended list of counties subject to the rule, he said.
Board member Karen Garcia said if the two counties aren't included now, the state will have to go through much more rule-making later to bring them in.
The board spent much of the day deciding what language to keep, what to throw out and what should be reworked.
It also looked at how terms such as ozone precursors should be defined, based on arguments and counterarguments by regulators, industry advocates and environmental groups like WildEarth Guardians.
An example was the term "ozone precursors."