Field testing ...
Thanks to a volunteer from A&M, we have actually already started to collect some field data! The location is outside Bryan/College Station, where oil and gas exploration has also increased in the last few years. In this case, it popped up suddenly next to our volunteer's peaceful countryside home without much prior warning ... and what followed were weeks of truck traffic, drilling, fracking, lots of noise, and anxiety about what is in the air as a result. If this sounds familiar, you are one of millions of people wondering what this does to their air quality ...
Our data can shed some light onto that.
Below is an actual (annotated) chromatogram showing some of the hydrocarbons we can measure. This was from a one-week passive sampler exposed near our volunteer's home a few weeks ago.
In this sample, the abundance of hydrocarbons was comparatively low, 0.3 ppb n-hexane (about 1 microgram per cubic meter) and 0.2 ppb benzene (about 0.6 microgram per cubic meter), two of the air toxics we want to focus on. Such (average) levels are typical for suburban areas or rural areas when winds carry air pollutants from urban areas.
In this example week, we had both cloud-free and cloudy days, and temps ranged from near freezing into the lower 70s, with both southerly and northely winds.
Our onsite volunteers will get both general weather info and the hydrocarbon concentrations going along with that. In addition, we will provide basic interpretations based on our long-term experience with such data.
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