The 11th Injection Well Approved in Pennsylvania



A sign protesting a proposed deep injection well sits on the lawn of a home in Brady Township, Clearfield County. Community opposition to deep injection wells is strong because of links with earthquakes and fears of drinking water contamination.

Injection wells are now being permitted in Pennsylvania.  Injection wells are installed to store fracking fluids from gas well drilling.  In other areas of the country, for example, Oklahoma, injection wells have been linked to earthquakes, seismic activity, and underground pollution of water.  I guess injection wells are going to be increasing in number.  It is truly troubling that, added to more and more pipelines and compressor stations, we must face the consequences of all these threats to our environment and our health.

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2017/06/05/pa-dep-approved-11th-underground-injection-well-for-oil-and-gas-waste/

North Dakota farmers fight soil contamination

One county's infertile land offers a test case of the long-term effects of wastewater spills....

Read the article here.

"Bottineau County offers an unusual, decades-long test case, since the region has a long history of contamination and a plethora of aging wells, tanks, pipelines, disposal sites and other infrastructure left from North Dakota's earlier oil booms in the 1930s, 1950s, and 1980s.  And the experiment is not over yet...."

Nothing will grow.

The crop is dying as we watch it.

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.

Brine Truck Dumping on Road in Ft. Worth, TX

Yes, the methods of disposal of fracking waste are several, but one of them is illegal dumping.  It happens not only in Texas, but in Pennsylvania, North Dakota,  and New York, too.

Read more and see some photos here.

Thank you, Vera Scroggins, for bringing this video to my attention. 

The Definitive Guide to the MYTH of Frack Water "Recycling"

This is a great blog post from Bill Huston of Binghamton, NY. He says:

Fact: You cannot make toxins "go away."  We can concentrate the waste; we can separate the waste. We can transform the waste from one state into another.  But we can't make it disappear from the Earth.

http://williamahuston.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-definitive-guide-to-myth-of-frack.html

See what you think.

The waste MUST GO SOMEWHERE!

Arden Landfill, Washington, PA

Click here to see a list of landfills in Pennsylvania that accept Marcellus drilling waste.  We just don't have adequate facilities to deal with the vast amount of fracking waste which will need to be disposed of.  Landfills leak, and they take up enormous amounts of land which could have been used for food production.  These landfills become superfund sites.  And what about air pollution?  Would anyone care to have one of these nextdoor to a home or school? This fracking waste is radioactive. We are dreaming if we think this will work out well.

Louis W. Allstadt On Gas Drilling In New York State and the SGEIS

Lou Allstadt discusses the enormous inadequacies of the New York State SGEIS. His talk can also be viewed here: www.otsego2000.org. For an excellent article on this topic, click HERE. Lou Allstadt is a former Mobil Oil Corp. executive. Initially a proponent of gas drilling, he now is "convinced the economic prospects are largely hype and that the state's environmental regulators are disturbingly unprepared to deal with the side effects of such an invasive industrial activity."

Gov. Christie (NJ) Vetoes Frack Wastewater Bill

N. J. Gov. Chris Christie

Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a bill Friday that would have banned wastewater generated by gas drilling from being treated or disposed of in New Jersey.  Read the article here.