air toxics

Crystalline silica, hydrofluoric acid and formaldehyde. Those are just three of the dozens of air toxic chemicals that oil companies have used thousands of times in southern California in just the past year. The data has come to light thanks to new reporting rules adopted in 2013 by the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which now requires oil and gas well operators to disclose the chemicals they use in oil and gas operations. According to a recently released analysis of the first year’s worth of reported data, oil companies used 44 different air toxic chemicals more than 5,000…