Close methane loopholes, for our kids’ sakes
American Lung Association gives six NM counties failing grades for clean air
As a pediatrician, I treated children and families in Albuquerque for 43 years. I saw up close the relationship between the environment, human health and the socioeconomic, racial and ethnic disparities in how pollution affects public health in New Mexico.
While Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has committed to adopting nation-leading oil and gas regulations that hold the industry accountable and reduce emissions, her agencies’ draft rules appear to me to be inadequate, with loopholes that leave New Mexico children and others in our most vulnerable communities exposed to adverse health impacts.
Two recent reports lay bare the threat of rising air and methane pollution from the oil and gas industry and the urgency of reducing emissions for the health of our children, our communities and our climate. Now is the time to fix the issues and close the loopholes.
The American Lung Association’s “State of the Air” 2020 gives failing grades for ozone pollution to Eddy and Lea counties in the heart of the Permian Basin — (possibly) the largest oil field on the planet — and to San Juan County, home to the highest concentration of atmospheric methane in the United States.
Bernalillo, Doña Ana and Sandoval counties also receive failing grades from the ALA, probably in part because of the drift of pollution into those urbanized counties as well as local sources.
Indeed, the five New Mexico counties home to 97% of the state’s oil and gas wells are all at risk of violating federal ozone standards. This puts residents at higher risk for respiratory diseases such as emphysema and asthma as well as heart disease. Children and the elderly are especially at risk.
Asthma is already the third leading cause of hospitalizations among children under the age of 15, and hospitalizations for this common illness are higher in the southeast part of our state, home to the Permian Basin, than elsewhere in New Mexico. As a state, we should be doing everything we can to reduce the incidence of respiratory diseases, especially given our current public health crisis and Centers for Disease Control findings that people with underlying respiratory conditions and heart disease are at greater risk of worse outcomes of COVID-19.
Oil and gas operators in New Mexico leak, vent and flare at least one million tons of methane a year, alongside hundreds of thousands of tons of volatile organic compounds that react with nitrous oxides in the air to form ozone — smog. Methane is also a powerful greenhouse gas, and as ALA noted, climate change makes it even harder for states to address ozone pollution.
Unfortunately, New Mexico has some of the worst oil and gas pollution in the United States, and the state is rightly focused on getting rules in place this year to reduce emissions. However, as the draft rules stand now, they would effectively exempt the vast majority of wells in New Mexico from leak detection and repair requirements.
A new analysis from the Environmental Defense Fund finds that the exemptions in the rules for stripper wells and smaller facilities would disproportionately impact children, Hispanics and Native Americans due to the proximity of their homes to oil and gas wells.
In fact, more than 90% of Hispanics and almost half of all Native Americans in San Juan County live within a half mile of an exempted well site, as do 72% of kids younger than 5. In the Permian Basin, 28,000 New Mexicans live within one half mile of wells that would be exempted from health-saving requirements in the draft NMED rules, including more than one third of Hispanics and a third of children younger than 5.
As the Lujan Grisham administration finalizes oil and gas regulations to reduce air pollution and methane, it must eliminate loopholes and exemptions and ensure we put in place the strongest rules possible to protect all New Mexicans. Our children and the health of our communities deserve no less.