GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colorado — Colorado State University researchers and a private research firm presented a new proposal to study air emissions from natural gas operations in Garfield County, and the County agreed.

The Garfield County commissioners heard about the three-year study at their regular meeting on Monday in Glenwood Springs. Garfield County and Colorado State University (CSU) announced the presentation on the study in press releases issued Friday. The county asked CSU to submit a study proposal.

The study is a second effort to determine air quality impacts from drilling, after the commissioners aborted an earlier study by the Colorado School of Public Health, called the Battlement Health Impacts Assessment.

CSU proposes a study team of university experts and the private firm Air Resource Specialists Inc., also of Fort Collins. An advisory panel will also weigh in on the team’s work. The university’s press release called the effort a “non-partisan scientific study.”

“The overall goal of this project is to produce a high-quality, peer-reviewed assessment of air emissions and dispersion from well drilling, hydraulic fracturing and flowback activities
in Garfield County,” said CSU professor Jeffrey L. Collett Jr. MORE …