Abstract
Abstract. The Bakken formation contains billions of barrels of oil and gas trapped in rock and shale. Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods have allowed for extraction of these resources, leading to exponential growth of oil production in the region over the past decade. Along with this development has come an increase in associated emissions to the atmosphere. Concern about potential impacts of these emissions on federal lands in the region prompted the National Park Service to sponsor the Bakken Air Quality Study over two winters in 2013–2014. Here we provide an overview of the study and present some initial results aimed at better understanding the impact of local oil and gas emissions on regional air quality. Data from the study, along with long-term monitoring data, suggest that while power plants are still an important emissions source in the region, emissions from oil and gas activities are impacting ambient concentrations of nitrogen oxides and black carbon and may dominate recent observed trends in pollutant concentrations at some of the study sites. Measurements of volatile organic compounds also definitively show that oil and gas emissions were present in almost every air mass sampled over a period of more than 4 months.
Highlights
The Williston Basin covers several hundred thousand square kilometers in parts of North Dakota (ND), Montana (MT), South Dakota (SD), Saskatchewan, and Manitoba
We provide some highlights from the study, with a focus on measurements of nitrogen oxides (NOx), SO2, elemental carbon (EC)/black carbon (BC) and some volatile organic compounds (VOCs), all primary emissions from the energy industry, and address the question of whether energy development in the Bakken is impacting air quality in national parks and other federal lands in the region
Back trajectory analysis showed that the periods with highest concentrations for SO2 and NO2 corresponded to trawww.atmos-chem-phys.net/16/1401/2016/
Summary
The Williston Basin covers several hundred thousand square kilometers in parts of North Dakota (ND), Montana (MT), South Dakota (SD), Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. In the Bakken and Three Forks formations within the Williston Basin, it is estimated that there are more than 7 billion barrels of recoverable oil (http://www.eia.gov/), making it the largest tight oil play in the United States (US) (EIA, 2014) Despite these vast deposits, it is only in the past decade that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods have allowed for cost-efficient extraction of these resources, which has led to exponential growth in the number of wells in the region. It is only in the past decade that horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing methods have allowed for cost-efficient extraction of these resources, which has led to exponential growth in the number of wells in the region Much of this activity is in ND (Fig. 1), where there are currently ∼ 10 000 active wells producing over 1 million barrels of oil each day (https://www.dmr.nd.gov/oilgas/).
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