Oil and Gas Accountability Toolkit
oil

The Public Lab non-profit hosts the **Oil and Gas Accountability Toolkit**, a collection of resources and a coalition of people working around the world on oil and gas issues. This toolkit goes beyond just "tools" to include: * peer support networks * [stories](/blog) of change and of challenges * ways to [build a community of practice](/facilitation) for sustained collaboration on a problem To see a full list of monitoring methods related to oil and gas, [click here](https://publiclab.org/methods#oil-and-gas). ### Coalitions What follows are a range of different topic-specific coalitions we've helped to bring together around a range of oil and gas related issues. We’ve learned more than ever to rely on the creativity and diverse skill-sets of contributors to develop new and unexpected ways of achieving goals. The thousands of people around the world who make up the Public Lab network **bring incredible expertise and a willingness to plug in and tackle problems** and continue to inspire us in their power and capacity. It’s our continuing responsibility to help them recognize and form alliances, and to solve problems together. ### Frac sand mining These resources are built around work supported by the [11th Hour Project](https://11thhourproject.org) which [focused on the issue of frac sand mining](/frac-sand). Since then, a range of projects have evolved to address different aspects of the issue. **** ## Air Monitoring ![microscope](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/022/880/large/OI000139_2.jpg) ### Microscope The Basic Microscope project on Public Lab was born from people’s interest in being able to visualize particulate matter that is known to be harmful for human and livestock health. Several local community members recognized the challenges in advocating with purely numerical data; when people can’t visualize and directly see threats, it can be easier to ignore. [wikis:microscopes] ### Air sampling Building on work by the Bucket Brigade, we've documented and collected several different techniques for collecting air samples for processing at a lab. [wikis:air-sampling] ### Measuring particles There are many different ways to measure particulate pollution. Read below to find out more. [wikis:particulate-sensing-overview] ### Visual emission monitoring Using your eyes or a camera to monitor emissions is a powerful type of monitoring which has several EPA methods associated with it. [wikis:visual-monitoring] ![Screen_Shot_2018-04-16_at_2.57.43_PM.png](https://publiclab.org/system/images/photos/000/024/620/large/Screen_Shot_2018-04-16_at_2.57.43_PM.png) ### Hydrogen Sulfide (above image by @ErikHanley11) [wikis:h2s-overview] ### Odor Reporting [wikis:odor] **** ![stormwater](/system/images/photos/000/024/626/large/Screen_Shot_2018-04-16_at_3.42.04_PM.png) ## Water Monitoring A wide range of sample-based, electronic, and other methods of monitoring water quality have been compiled on Public Lab, reflecting a range of efforts across our community. [wikis:water-monitoring] ![timelapse](/system/images/photos/000/018/073/large/Screenshot_2016-09-19_at_2.32.15_PM.png) ### Photo documentation Public Lab work began with photographic monitoring using [balloons and kites](/balloon-mapping). We've grown our coalition around a number of other ways that powerful visual evidence can be produced through photography. [wikis:photo-monitoring] ### Turbidity A range of techniques has been compiled around turbidity monitoring: [wikis:turbidity] ![datalogger](/system/images/photos/000/020/770/large/Screenshot_2017-06-12_at_3.06.25_PM.png) ### Datalogging A surprisingly broad coalition of projects has developed around Public Lab for logging data from different sources. See the main [Data Logging page](/data-logging) for more. [wikis:datalogger] **** ![soil sampling](/system/images/photos/000/024/627/large/Screen_Shot_2018-04-16_at_3.44.24_PM.png) ## Soil Monitoring We're developing initial soil sampling and monitoring techniques and resources under the "soil testing" topic: [wikis:soil-testing] **** ## Questions [questions:oil-and-gas]...


Author Comment Last activity Moderation
ernestootero "No I have not aged any of the standards sent, but is a great idea. In terms of the asphalt, samples 4, the pavement blank, is asphalt a few meters ..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Also perhaps it'd be good to test asphalt alone! " | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "This is so great! I'm curious, are you able to take a motor oil source that's known, and dry it out and prepare it in a similar way, after some agi..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
Craig "Excellent " | Read more » over 8 years ago
liz "Here's the thread from the NY-NY local list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/plots-nyc/X9hc3JD7-nE " | Read more » over 8 years ago
liz "@eustatic, @cquijano84, @Tofu, @ronhuber, @norby, @uprmotero, @Craig, @tmccaffr, @Charles_Hamilton, @mahsa, @JayB, @MelissaN, @LKStendie, @wsg, @zh..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "@SyncPoint - we'd love to get some additional crude samples, or perhaps you could share spectra of them? " | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Hmm, how did you use your white front bike light to calibrate? Surely it's not a compact fluorescent bulb? " | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Hi coight, sorry, I think it doesn't allow word docs for upload. Do you have a PDF or can I help you convert it? jeff@publiclab.org " | Read more » over 8 years ago
mathew "Ron, there are a few tabs that aren't held together. I put some notes on your image: here's a closeup: " | Read more » over 8 years ago
Matej " Hi guys, Liz Barry suggested me to contact you. I am an artist working on a "toolbox for bioremediation" This is part of my larger international ..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
coight "For some reason I am unable to upload any file here - I have tried eight times without success. I have pasted the text for the project above - no i..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
coight "Spectrometer laboratory setup Fig. 1A illustrates the design of our spectrometer. Our spectrometer was based on the design used for the Public Labs..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
coight "Hi all, thanks for comments. I have added a word doc outlining my methodology and initial results. I am unsure how to divide spectra of a sample b..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "the preview of Spectral Workbench v2 with subtraction is now live -- i'll be posting about it shortly. @ThomasS - how would subtraction and divisio..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
ThomasS "Doing division between sample and light source sounds promissing. How exactly do you shield the sample from outer light? Do you snapshot both in on..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Also, are you open sourcing your rover design? Do you have more pics of how you've attached the spectrometer and details on how youre operating it? " | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Hi, @coight! This looks like a spectacular (for real!) project and I'd love to learn more. There are two ways of smoothing that I know of. One is ..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
Guillaume123 "This looks interesting! From a simple spectrometer like the PublicLab spectrometer I would expect the intensity results to be lower than from a pr..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
coight " " | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "I've also heard on the lists about someone using thermal cameras in the Portland area to try to measure gases from oil trains (i think?). Could be ..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
nshapiro "Hi @tonyc I think there are some people in Pittsburgh interested in doing something very similar! I've emailed them the link. I hope they reach out..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Also, regarding the noise you believe is a result of instability without even applying force to the spectrometer housing, what do you think is the ..." | Read more » over 8 years ago
warren "Hi, Dave - have you had any success reproducing the kind of wavelength drift shown in the example by @priyanka above? Having an idea of how much f..." | Read more » over 8 years ago