Natural gas wells and related processing sites in Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia are spewing “invisible” plumes of air pollution, according to an investigation by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
The Annapolis-based environmental group hired an infrared videographer to check 15 natural gas drilling and compressor sites in the Marcellus shale region of the three states. The special camera picked up the heat signature of gases billowing into the air from 11 of the sites, or nearly three out of four.
Robert Howarth, an ecologist at Cornell University in New York, said the gases being released in the video most likely contained methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and other other hydrocarbons, including possibly benzene and toluene.
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