New Mexico’s environmental improvement board recently approved a new rule to curb oilfield emissions that cause ground-level ozone. The so-called “ozone precursor rule” is intended to reduce this pollutant in areas where fossil fuel operations elevate it to levels deemed unsafe. Advocates told the Santa Fe New Mexican that the new regulation “will make New Mexico lead the nation in protecting public health and the environment from the pollutant.”
Oilfields emit nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that form ground-level ozone, a toxic gas. State and federal officials said their monitoring devices show ozone precursors have increased at oil and gas sites in recent years and must be reduced. The rule was scheduled to be finalized May 26 and take effect 30 days after publication in New Mexico Register. The rule will apply to counties where the ozone pollutants reach at least 95 percent of the federal ambient air quality standard, including Chaves, Eddy and Lea counties in Permian Basin.
Doug Ackerman, president and CEO of New Mexico Oil and Gas Association, told the New Mexican, “We participated in efforts to regulate ozone precursors even though the oil and gas industry contributes less than three parts per billion of ozone out of the roughly 75 parts per billion that exist today.”