More Concern Over a Marked Rise in Earthquakes In Oklahoma

"Squinting into a laptop perched on the back of his pickup, Austin Holland searches for a signal from a coffee-can-sized sensor buried under the grassy prairie.

Holland, Oklahoma’s seismology chief, is determined to find the cause of an unprecedented earthquake epidemic in the state. And he suspects pumping wastewater from oil and gas drilling back into the Earth has a lot to do with it.

“If my research takes me to the point where we determine the safest thing to do is to shut down injection -- and consequently production -- in large portions of the state, then that’s what we have to do,” Holland said. “That’s for the politicians and the regulators to work out.” "


Read the Bloomberg article here.

Seismic Study To Be Done In Oklahoma: 4500 Disposal Wells and Earthquakes Linked

An E&E Publishing Service

EARTHQUAKES: Okla. agency gets $1.8M to study seismic links to drilling (Wednesday, July 16, 2014)

Mike Soraghan, E&E reporter

Earthquake researchers in Oklahoma have received nearly $2 million from the federal government to study connections between the state's surge in quakes and oil and gas drilling activities.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey will use the money to buy new equipment and hire researchers to analyze piles of research about the drilling wastewater injected into the state's 4,500 disposal wells, said Director G. Randy Keller.

The two-year, $1.8 million grant is from the Department of Energy's Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). The state, the University of Oklahoma, and the oil and gas industry provided a 20 percent match.

"The whole scheme of things is to produce a really detailed 3-D model of the earth down 10 miles or more," Keller said.

Oklahoma has become the most seismically active state in the lower 48 in the last few months, and many have pointed the blame at disposal wells used to inject wastewater from oil and gas drilling.

The state has had more earthquakes magnitude 3 or higher than California in the last nine months (EnergyWire, May 7). There's been a fortyfold increase during the period of 2008 to 2013 compared with 1976 to 2007.

In 2014, Oklahoma has had twice as many quakes as California, though it's only half the size.

There also have been earthquakes linked to injection in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Ohio and Texas.

The U.S. Geological Survey and academic researchers have linked much of the increase in Oklahoma to deep injection of waste fluid from oil and gas production in the drilling-heavy state.

OGS has been the voice of skepticism in the seismology community on links between drilling activities and earthquakes. The agency has said it is premature to link the earthquakes to wastewater disposal and rebutted the findings of other researchers.

In anticipation of a March 2013 study finding that the state's largest earthquake was induced by disposal, OGS released its own conclusions that it was the result of natural causes (EnergyWire, March 27, 2013).

When areas north of Oklahoma City were rattled by a swarm of smaller earthquakes in November, OGS posted a report pointing away from oil and gas activities and toward changing water levels in nearby Arcadia Lake. Other researchers have linked the swarm to oil production in the area that produces huge volumes of water.

But OGS seismologist Austin Holland has linked very small earthquakes and the hydraulic fracturing of an oil well. And his research contributed to state officials' decision last year to sharply restrict injection at a well site near Marietta, Okla., after a nearby earthquake.

OGS applied for the grant in December and got official word that it had been approved for the grant last month.

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Oklahoma Earthquakes Likely Caused By Injection Wells

"Wastewater injections from oil and gas operations likely have led to the recent sharp increase in earthquakes across central Oklahoma, according to researchers, including two from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The study, which appears in the journal Science, used hydrogeological models to gauge how pressure from wastewater injected into underground rock seeped into faults where seismic activity occurred."


Read the article here.

"Out of sight, out of mind" does not apply to fracking waste injected into the ground.  As the saying goes, it will come back to bite us.

Fracking Waste Messes With Texas: Rachel Maddow Show

Terrence Henry, energy and environment reporter for StateImpact Texas, talks with Rachel Maddow about the sudden rash of earthquakes in Texas, apparently the result of the disposal of waste fluid resulting from natural gas fracking. From the August 7th, 2012 edition of The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.

Does Fracking Cause Earthquakes?

Gas Wells Are Not Our Friends (GWANOF) reader, Laurie, sent this link in today:

http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/04/does-fracking-cause-earthquakes

Good question. Recent articles have pointed to the probable answer: Yes. This issue is still under study.  But since we have more natural gas than we know what to do with at the moment, why not stop operations and get the answers BEFORE continuing natural gas drilling while crossing our fingers and hoping for the best?  In my view, we haven't had the greatest of luck with that method, given the number and variety of accidents which occur on a regular basis at well pads, compressor stations, and pipelines.  If public health and a sustainable planet mean anything to us, we must put moratoria on gas drilling operations EVERYWHERE.

See also: http://dearsusquehanna.blogspot.com/2012/04/earthquakes-directly-linked-to-oil-and.html

Earthquakes Directly Linked to Oil and Gas Drilling

In 2011 the US Geological Survey (USGS) linked 50 Oklahoma earthquakes to fracking, and a British fracking operation recently fessed up to causing earthquakes in England.  An earthquake linked to fracking in Ohio was so strong that its effects were felt in Toronto.

Now a new report from the USGS to be presented next month at the annual meeting of the Seismological Society of America in San Diego directly links an "unprecedented" increase in frequency and magnitude of earthquakes to drilling for oil and gas.

Read more here...

Mysterious Earthquakes in Ohio: Caused By Injection Wells?

Youngstown, Ohio has seen 11 earthquakes since March and scientists say injection of fracking waste deep underground triggered them.

SRBC Testimony: Will you be good Germans?

Rabbi Mordechi Liebling testified recently at the SRBC hearing in Wikes-Barre, PA. His impassioned remarks were totally ignored by the commission.

Here are more details about the hearing:

A powerful public comment was ignored at the SRBC meeting in Wilkes-Barre on December 15, 2011.

The manager of project review for the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Dehoff - with the help of his staff - is responsible for recommending to the commission whether to approve water withdrawals from the basin. That includes suggesting whether the commission should allow natural gas companies to withdraw water used for the controversial drilling and hydraulic fracturing of gas wells.

In front of more than 50 people at the commission's meeting Thursday morning at the East Mountain Inn just outside of Wilkes-Barre, Dehoff made it about halfway through his recommendations before the cacophony of boos and chanting forced commission Chairwoman Kelly Heffner to threaten to clear the room, hastily adopt all of Dehoff's recommendations and adjourn the meeting early.