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Airborne radioactivity from fossil fuel production systems is poorly characterized, but a recent study showed elevated ambient levels with proximity to oil and gas production wells. Here, we report year-long, high temporal resolution monitoring results of airborne alpha radioactivity from both radon gas and radon progeny attached to particulates immediately northeast of an oil refinery in Commerce City, Colorado, USA, in an environmental justice community of concern. Gas and particle-associated radioactivity contributed nearly evenly to the total alpha radioactivity. Total radioactivity levels of 30–40 Bq m−3 were 2–3 times higher than background levels (~10–15 Bq m−3) when winds were light and southwesterly, suggesting the refinery as the geographic origin. Furthermore, elevated airborne radioactivity tracked most closely with the light hydrocarbon and natural gas tracer ethane. Thus, the data imply natural gas as the radon emission carrier. Our findings are unique and suggest a need for further investigations of radon emissions from oil and gas infrastructure such as natural gas processing plants, compressor stations, petrochemical plants, and oil refineries that process oil and natural gas from unconventional production. Implications: Regulatory agencies currently do not mandate or conduct monitoring of radioactivity releases and public exposure from petroleum industry air emissions. This study reports elevated radioactivity from radon gas and nonvolatile radon decay products attached to particulate matter, at about 2–3 times above background levels in proximity to Colorado's largest oil refinery. Observations were within an environmental justice community of concern that experiences well above-average exposure to many other harmful atmospheric pollutants, suggesting potential adverse health effects from this cumulative exposure. Our findings offer actionable insights for policymakers, industry stakeholders, and affected communities alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Airborne and surface measurements of ozone (O3) during the Texas Air Quality Study campaigns in 2000 and 2006 (TexAQS 2000 and TexAQS 2006) were used to investigate the relationship between maximum daily O3 and the vector-averaged wind speed , calculated from radar wind profiler data, in the lower atmospheric boundary layer (BL). Both the maximum daily O3 and the peak “add-on” O3 contribution (calculated as the maximum minus the background values) from the Houston area showed a strong correlation (r∼0.7–0.9) with both the reciprocal of this wind speed −1, and the wind speed itself. Data from airborne platforms produced higher correlations in general than surface-measured values. Except for special cases where O3 was measured close to source activity in a location where the BL depth h was suppressed, peak daily ozone concentrations were not strongly correlated with h, and attempts to include 1/h dependence with −1 degraded the correlations—indicating that in general, h was not a strong predictor for maximum daily O3. Inclusion of daily maximum temperature in the regression analysis also failed to improve the correlations significantly. The high correlations for wind speed thus showed that was the meteorological variable most strongly associated with peak daily O3 concentrations. The best-fit regression line of peak daily O3 vs. for the 2000 data lay above the line for 2006 for wind speeds less than 5 m s−1, the difference increasing as the wind speeds weakened. This six-year decrease in O3 concentrations for the weakest-wind, most polluted days suggests that control strategies implemented between 2000 and 2006 may be producing beneficial effects, especially on the most polluted days. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]