Abstract |
The use of steam injection to recover high viscosity oil in Kern County, California has created the potential for violation of federal and state ambient air quality standards in that area. The increasing number of permit applications for development of new steam generation facilities has prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to commission a study to determine the sulfur dioxide levels produced by the present and proposed configurations of crude oil-fired steam generators. This report presents the results of that study. Two locations in Kern County were of interest: the oil fields in the central portion of the county, near Bakersfield, and the oil fields well to the west of Bakersfield, lying on a roughly NW to SE line about 40 miles in length, between the towns of McKittrick and Maricopa. To assess the air quality at the two locations, data describing the meteorological conditions, the measured SO2 levels, and inventories of both generator and nongenerator sources were collected and reduced. A limited verification of data detailing generator source characteristics, particularly location, was performed. |