The swarm of earthquakes went on for months in North Central Texas, rattling homes, with reports of broken water pipes and cracked walls and locals blaming the shudders on the hydraulic fracturing boom that’s led to skyrocketing oil and gas production around the nation.
Darlia Hobbs, who lives on Eagle Mountain Lake, about a dozen miles from Fort Worth, said that more than 30 quakes had hit from November to January.
“We have had way too many earthquakes out here because of the fracking and disposal wells,“ she said in an interview.
While the dispute over the cause remains, leading geophysicists are now saying Hobbs and other residents might be right to point the finger at oil and gas activities.
“It is certainly possible, and in large part that is based on what else we’ve seen in the Fort Worth basin in terms of the rise of earthquakes since 2008,“ William Ellsworth, a U.S. Geological Survey seismologist, said.
Ellsworth said the Dallas-Fort Worth region previously had just a single known earthquake, in 1950.
Since 2008, he said, there have been more than 70 big enough to feel. Those include earthquakes at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport that scientists linked to a nearby injection well.
Ellsworth briefed his colleagues on his findings Thursday at the Seismological Society of America’s annual meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.
Researchers also are investigating links between quakes in Kansas, Oklahoma, Ohio and elsewhere to oil and gas activities. USGS seismologist Art McGarr said it was clear that deep disposal of drilling waste was responsible for at least some of the earthquakes in the heartland.
Well gee now we can have not only flammable tap water, and virtually impossible to clean up oil spills, we can also have dramatically increased earthquakes and possibly millions of dollar in property damage.
Gee isn't relying on fossil fuels fun?
"When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, And The Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money." -- Cree Proverb
ReplyDeleteOf course, even with undeniable, concrete PROOF of the phenomena, we won't be able to get the process stopped because assholes like Issa will refuse to accept the links and won't allow it to stop. And you KNOW the Koch brothers profits won't let THEM stop.
ReplyDeleteBesides, there will always be the "Drill baby drill" folks who won't even CARE, let alone think about stopping. THEY don't live anywhere near where this is happening so they aren't affected.
Louie Gohmert: "Only God can make an earthquake! The idea that a little old man with a drill and a pump can move the earth? That's crazy heretic talk! Time for some burnings at the stake!"
DeleteThank you for posting the earthquake information. There have been 2,500+ earthquakes in Oklahoma's since 2012. The center of the earthquake activity in OK is in north central portion of the state and only a short distance from where the Keystone XL pipeline will be built if the President okays it. I know the pipeline will be buried 4 or 5 feet but if underground water lines can break because of earthquakes, then I think it's possible that underground oil and gas lines are vulnerable too. The following link is about OK earthquakes.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.livescience.com/45361-oklahoma-earthquake-risk-rising.html
I'm no expert, but it seems like the hundreds of billions being spent on fracking and blowing mountain tops to bits, and all the fortunes being spent getting ready to drill in the Arctic Ocean should be spent on clean energy. I'm sure there are smart people who could figure out a way to use the sun, tides, wind and algae to power our lives.
ReplyDeleteYes, you would think that. BUT, the Kock brothers, instead of getting on the clean energy bandwagon, want to TAX the sun
Deletehttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/24/1294444/-U-S-Solar-Capacity-up-418-Since-2010-Koch-Bros-Demand-Tax-on-Sun?detail=email
There are lots of very smart people working on renewable energy right now. They have already figured out lots of ways to power our lives and are looking for ways to improve it every day. The problem is that our country doesn't value clean energy enough to give those very smart people enough funding or respect.
DeleteInteresting you bring up Algae. I met a young Engineer at Starbucks a while back. We got to talking and come to find out he was working on the algae project for EXXON. As a Texan, I can say I don't remember a single earthquake for the first 48 years I lived here. But now....not only are they happening in Fort Worth but out in the Permean Basin area, Midland, Odessa. They are having many quakes out there. To top it off, we don't know a thing about them as far as preparedness, what to do during a quake. Nothing. We were all taught as children what to do during a tornado or a hurricane for those who live near a coast but we haven't had one word of instruction about quakes. My final word on all this is the Fracking is so frenzied out in West Texas that a regular motel room like the Days Inn or Motel 6 is renting for $300.00 a night. They are always full. The oil companies are just desperate to get at that natural gas. Using the most unnatural way in the world.
ReplyDeleteTexasMel
Same deal in Oklahoma. Nothing about being prepared for an earthquake. Governor Failing issued a statement in March 2014 stating that she was leaving it up to the scientists study before doing anything. bwahahha That would be the ones bought for by Big Oil....
DeleteThere WAS a blurb or two on the news about buying earthquake insurance but they disappeared as fast as they appeared.
You can be sure our Governor, who is against healthcare, against minimum wage increase, against taxes for corporations, etc., will be crying with both her hands out for Federal money when the big one hits. And it's not IF but When.
We no longer travel to that part of the state. It's like Russian roulette out there.
I think God is speaking, if these "drill babies" would shut up and listen.
ReplyDeleteAfter they finish poluting the water, they will make money selling the unfornate people water.
ReplyDeletePeople pay big money to go to amusement parks and stand in log lines to ride dangerous thrill rides. People spend a lot of time watching disaster movies where cities are leveled by so called natural disasters. So all these free earthquakes might ot be all bad.
ReplyDeleteDana Perino on fracking related earthquakes: "It is time for the American public to focus on the real earthquake, which we all know is BENGHAZI!!!"
ReplyDeleteEarthquake warning issued for Oklahoma as number of quakes rises by HALF in just six months
ReplyDeleteEarthquakes of magnitude 5 and larger more frequent in California and Alaska
Oklahoma outpaced that of even California for the first few months of 2014 in the rate of earthquakes
Water injection used in fracking could be blamed for increasing underground pressures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2621183/Is-Oklahoma-new-California-Rare-earthquake-warning-issued-state-50-percent-rise-major-ground-shocks-just-six-months.html
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/search/label/Oklahoma
Good article- This is another example of why the global warming debate is a waste of time. We have enough reason for change with these earthquakes, oil spills, air pollution, toxic train car derailments, and on and on. We cannot continue to depend on fossil fuels.
ReplyDeleteAlso, too, there is a limit-- peak oil ya know.
So all those geniuses can stand there as the earth cracks under their feet and deny global warming--- but they cannot deny the obvious harm done by all of the above.
Also, too, we need wars to get that stuff under "their" sand.
Send your son and daughter - please.
I caught the end of a program on PBS, one scientist used a word (that slips my mind at the moment) for the waste in the water used for fracking. No one knows the half life, no tests have been done to see how it effects genetics, crops, the environment, etc. They pointed out the increases in seismic activity and the "claims" that they'll seal the wells (but do nothing for aquifers). The stuff is virtually un containable and can't be filtered from the water. It may (and that's a huge may) or may not have an effect on the atmosphere, crops and climate. They're using laws put in by companies like Haliburton and Big Oil to avoid culpability.
ReplyDeleteNo Fracking Way this should be allowed to happen. There's no such thing as clean coal.