[EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog has been altered since its initial publication to correct the causes of the Ohio earthquakes. The injection of fracking wastewater deep underground, not the fracking process itself, is blamed for the Youngstown, Ohio earthquakes. The Ind regrets the error.]
First it was air pollution. Then it was groundwater contamination. Now, fracking — the controversial process used to extract natural gas from thousands of feet below the earth’s surface — has been linked to a series of rare earthquakes in Ohio and other states, the most recent of which occurred in Youngstown, Ohio Saturday and has halted drilling at certain Ohio fracking sites until further notice.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, taps into pockets of natural gas stored in shale formations deep underground (sometimes depths of more than 10,000 feet below the surface) by shooting chemicals and other liquid to fracture rock formations and subsequently release trapped natural gas.
The wastewater from fracking is then injected back into the earth, where in Ohio it apparently has migrated along fault lines and caused almost a dozen earthquakes in the Youngstown area.
“Fracking” in north Louisiana’s Haynesville Shale has carried natural gas production levels in Louisiana to their highest in more than 25 years, but several recent reports question whether oil and gas industry leaders are accurate in their assertions that the process is a safe one.
According to a New York Times report, Youngstown was hit with a 2.7-magnitude tremor on Christmas Eve, its 10th since March. The origin of the earthquake, the NYT reports, was 2,000 feet below an injection well used for fracking. The next day, an even stronger 4.0-magnitude quake struck the town again:
With the increased production of gas from shale in the United States, the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has come under fire for its potential to pollute the air and contaminate drinking water. But the events in Youngstown — and a string of mostly small tremors in Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, British Columbia and other shale-gas-producing areas — suggest that the technique may lead, directly or indirectly, to a dangerous earthquake.
The state asked on Friday that injection at the well be halted after analysis of the 10th earthquake, a 2.7-magnitude temblor on Dec. 24, showed that it occurred less than 2,000 feet below the well. Because of a lack of data, depth estimates of earlier earthquakes had been far less precise.
The owner of the well, D&L Energy Group of Youngstown, stopped injection at 5 p.m. Friday.
When the stronger quake occurred less than 24 hours later, state officials decided to institute a moratorium on the injection of drilling waste within a five-mile radius of the well, “until we are able to take a closer look at the earthquake data that is available.”
The vice president of Ohio’s Oil and Gas Association, Thomas E. Stewart — or Don Brigg's doppelganger — rebuked any claims that tie the earthquakes to fracking, instead accusing oil and gas opponents of trying to “create hysteria.”
But a Dec. 14 article from Bloomberg points out that other states have stopped certain injection wells of this type due to the dramatic increase in earthquakes occurring near the sites:
The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission did stop well disposal in August after a swarm of earthquakes. There were about 1,250 quakes recorded through July after two injection wells started operating last year, said Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Arkansas Geological Survey in Little Rock.
Ausbrooks did a study with the University of Memphis and concluded there was “a plausible relationship between the injection wells and the earthquakes” after a previously unknown fault system was discovered, he said.
After the wells were shut down, there were only four earthquakes recorded in the area from July through October, down from an average of four a day, Ausbrooks said.
The Oklahoma Geological Survey concluded in an August report that it might have induced 43 temblors near Elmore City during 24 hours in January. Cuadrilla Resources Ltd., a U.K.-based explorer, also suspended fracking near Blackpool, England, in June based on a concern it may have triggered a quake.
Read more on the recent fracking developments here and here.
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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