“We are encouraged that these funds will increase the New Mexico Environment Department’s ability to monitor air quality in southeast New Mexico, where communities feel the impacts every day of air pollution caused by oil and gas extraction,” said Kelly Fuller, Climate and Energy Program Director at WildEarth Guardians. “We’re glad to have had this opportunity to enhance the Department’s air quality monitoring capacity and hope to aid the Department again in the future to improve New Mexico’s air and water.”
Oil and gas production in the Permian Basin currently results in high levels of ozone pollution in southeast New Mexico communities. Ozone pollution can cause health problems including asthma, lung infections, bronchitis, cancer, low birth weight, and preterm birth. Air quality monitoring reveals the levels of pollutants that are precursors to ozone and can help identify sources and which communities are most at risk.
“This new equipment will allow us to supplement our stationary air monitors and be more responsive to communities’ pointed concerns about local air quality in the Permian,” said Michelle Miano, Director of NMED’s Environmental Protection Division. “We are grateful to receive the benefit of this legal settlement as we expand our air program to deliver what New Mexicans expect — clean air and healthy families — no matter where you live in our state.”
The funding for the mobile air testing lab comes from a 2022 legal settlement between WildEarth Guardians and oil companies Oxy USA Inc. and Oxy USA WTP LP (Oxy) after WildEarth Guardians filed suit against the companies under the Clean Air Act over operations at Oxy’s Turkey Track oil and gas facility near Carlsbad, New Mexico. As part of the settlement, Oxy agreed to pay $500,000 for a mitigation project to improve air quality and/or public health in Eddy and/or Lea County, New Mexico or elsewhere in the surrounding Permian Basin oil production region. Providing funds for the mobile air testing lab fulfills the mitigation project portion of the settlement agreement. Other terms of the settlement committed Oxy to paying a $500,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury and making broader operational changes and equipment upgrades at Turkey Track and dozens of its other oil and gas facilities in the Permian Basin of New Mexico to improve air quality, totaling more than $5.5 million.
Pollution in the Permian Basin (Jasmin Pawlowicz photo)
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