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The high ozone levels are of particular concern because U.S. EPA is under a court order to tighten its current 84 parts per billion standard. The standard will fall to 75 ppb in mid-May. Any eight-hour average above 75 ppb will then be considered unhealthy for children, the elderly and those with existing respiratory conditions.

That could spell trouble for the booming natural gas industry. If the fourth-highest ozone reading at a site exceeds the national standards three years in a row, stringent federal regulations kick in to bring the area into attainment.

Ozone is formed when nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds combine with heat and sunlight. Major sources of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds include vehicle emissions and oil and gas operations.

The issue of ozone pollution tied to energy development became prominent earlier this year when the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality issued its first ozone advisory for the Pinedale area, a region once known for its pristine air quality (Land Letter, Feb. 28).

The spikes raised concerns in part because industry is proposing to drill an additional 4,400 new natural gas wells in the area, possibly leading to even more air pollution. The Bureau of Land Management's analysis of the new natural gas drilling proposed for the Pinedale Anticline found it would result in high-end ozone concentrations of about 77 ppb.

But an industry source said that BLM's projections overestimate the pollution that would be generated by the new wells. Paul Matheny, a regional vice president with Questar Exploration and Production Co., said the agency's computer model does account for reductions in emissions resulting from a host of strategies and procedures to further reduce air pollution, such as low-impact liquid gathering systems.

"The number the model gives you is a worst case, when all ozone sources combine together and very rarely, if ever, does that happen," Matheny said.

"The operators will be within the new EPA number," he predicted.

One thing that is unusual about the situation in the Pinedale area is that the high ozone levels have been recorded in the wintertime. Typically, high ozone levels occur in large cities like Denver or Los Angeles in the summer, when there is plenty of sunlight to cause the photochemical reactions in the atmosphere that lead to ozone formation.

DEQ officials have pointed to several factors contributing to the high ozone levels, which have reached as high as 122 ppb, including strong temperature inversions, low winds, snow cover and bright sunlight.

EPA submitted a highly critical letter to BLM officials in February, saying the agency had failed to adequately analyze the new wells' effects on air quality (Land Letter, Feb. 21). BLM spokeswoman Cindy Wertz said BLM officials are currently meeting with EPA and DEQ officials to address their concerns.

Potential impacts to Pinedale

Peter Aengst of the Wilderness Society said EPA's new ozone standard could force BLM to take another look at its drilling plans. "This is probably the single biggest lever for potential regulatory impacts that could change the way oil and gas development happens in the Pinedale area of Wyoming," he said.

Aengst predicted BLM would have to come out with another draft with tougher commitments to using technology to reduce emissions levels. "No one argues about whether they're going to drill. There's going to be more drilling. The question is how many wells are they going to drill, what rate are they going to drill and how clean they are when they do it. If they have to go at a little slower pace and spend a little more money on cleaner technology, so be it."

But Bruce Pendery of the Wyoming Outdoor Council was less optimistic about whether such changes will actually come to fruition. "We don't think inaction is really acceptable, but BLM has made it clear and industry has made it even more clear that they aren't really planning to do anything different," he said.

Aengst noted that the ozone problems in Pinedale should serve as a signal to other areas in the Rockies with heavy oil and gas development, particularly on Colorado's Western Slope, which has a topography and weather conditions similar to Pinedale. The ozone violations have occurred in one of the least populated counties in the nation's least populated state, a rural area devoid of any industry except oil and gas, he said.

"What we've seen in Pinedale is an incredible outpouring of local anger and disbelief and frustration," Aengst said. "A lot of people in Pinedale made sacrifices to live there -- they have to travel for hours to go to a major supermarket, there's no cultural opportunities, and there's other sacrifices as well -- but part of why they make them is so they can live in a clean and open setting. So having these urban-based health alerts is like having the urban problems without the urban benefits."

Potential impacts to Colorado

High ozone levels are also appearing in other areas of the country with concentrated energy development. In western Colorado's Garfield County, monitoring stations have recorded eight-hour ozone averages as high as 77 ppb, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

"We don't believe we're in violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, but it's apparent we're getting closer, and we'll take whatever actions are necessary to protect the community," said Jim Rada, environmental health manager for Garfield County Public Health.

Because of concerns about ozone in the area, the state of Colorado's Department of Public Health and Environment has provided the county with $54,000 to start continuous ozone monitoring in the town of Rifle, Rada said.

'You gotta go after the oil and gas industry'

Still, Rada indicated that it is unclear what is behind the high ozone readings. "Obviously, there's oil and gas development occurring very rapidly in this community, but along with that oil and gas development, there's correlated growth of the community and there is also coincidental growth of support industries, so there's plenty of additional sources of the precursors to ozone," he said.

Nevertheless, Jeremy Nichols of Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action said oil and gas activities account for a major portion of the pollution in Garfield County. Among all sources of air pollution in the county, including cars and trucks, oil and gas sources release 57 percent of all nitrogen oxides and 77 percent of volatile organic compounds, both of which react with sunlight to form ozone.

"If you really want to get at ozone pollution in Garfield County, you gotta go after the oil and gas industry," Nichols said.

Nichols said gas production in Weld County, Colorado's largest gas-producing region, may also be partly to blame for Denver's ozone problems.

"Part of the problem with oil and gas operations is that there are tiny sources of pollution that regulatory agencies typically don't focus on, but we're getting at the point where we're having thousands of those tiny sources scattered across the landscape and cumulatively those are adding up to a huge source of air pollution," Nichols said.

Pollution due to well completion

One of the sources of pollution is volatile organic compounds, methane and other gases energy companies vent into the air when they complete their wells. Estimates indicate that each well completion can release 86 tons of volatile organic compounds -- about the same amount of pollution that comes out of the tailpipes of more than 2,000 cars annually, according to Nichols.

Although some companies have been capturing those gases as they are released, selling the methane and disposing of the volatile organic compounds (Williams Production Co. makes about $9 for every $1 it spends in this process), Nichols said many companies are reluctant to adopt these practices. "There's a bigger incentive to drill more wells and get more gas, not to recover wasted gas," he said.

Nichols said energy companies should invest in such pollution controls now before they are forced to do so by stringent federal standards. "If these companies don't start making emissions cuts, they're going to start dealing with the same issues as the metro Denver area."

Mike Eisenfeld of the San Juan Citizens Alliance said ozone levels have been high in New Mexico's San Juan County as well, reaching above 80 ppb in Bloomfield last summer. "There's a good chance the area will be out of attainment," he said.

In 2003, BLM's Farmington Field Office approved almost 10,000 new wells on top of the existing 18,000 wells in the San Juan Basin. The San Juan Citizens Alliance challenged that approval in court, in part due to air quality concerns, but the case has been mired in the courts ever since.

A Four Corners Air Quality Task Force, established in 2005, was charged with looking at ways to reduce air pollution in the area. The task force's recommendations, released last November, included several mitigation measures to reduce air pollution.

But Eisenfeld said that is not enough. "They should be addressing ways to reduce emissions in the first place," he said.

Rita Bates of New Mexico's Air Quality Board said the worst ozone problems in the area have been recorded at Navajo Lake. According to AQB records, ozone levels there reached close to 95 ppb last summer.

"We haven't done any studies to determine what's responsible, but that's something we may look at in the future," she said. Bates did note that the growth of industry in the area has meant a commensurate increase in power plants, development and traffic.

"There is a potential that San Juan [County] would be in nonattainment with the new standard," she said.

States are expected to provide EPA with lists of areas that should be considered in nonattainment with the new standards next year. EPA is expected to make nonattainment designations in 2010.

Gable is an independent energy and environmental writer in Woodland Park, Colo.