Claire Bernish(The Pontiac Tribune) – The US Geological Survey released findings of a study which confirms, as many suspected, that increased seismic activity in eight states is due to fracking. Since 2009, an abrupt spike in earthquakes, in areas previously considered stable throughout the central and eastern US, coincided with drilling related to the boom in hydraulic fracturing by the oil and gas industry.
Injection of wastewater into wells deep underground in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas, is causing the quakes, which had a magnitude of 3 (M3) and above, though the process of fracking, itself, is only occasionally the culprit. The wastewater is a chemically questionable byproduct of fracking, which injects a mixture of water, sand, and undisclosed chemicals at high pressure to free oil and gas from rock underground. Once this chemical – laden soup has been used in the process, it is unfit for any purpose, and must be filtered and then re – injected into the earth in wells or stored in pits.
From the early 1970s until 2008, the areas in question averaged about 21 magnitude 3 or greater quakes per year, but this rate shot up dramatically between 2008 – 2013, to 99. In 2014, alone, there were a staggering 659 such tremors. Most of these induced quakes were seismically between M3 – M4, which can be felt by most people, but generally don’t cause any damage; however, in 2011, an M5.3 quake near Trinidad, Colorado, which was the largest in that area since 1967, and an M5.6 in Prague Oklahoma, which was felt in 17 states as far away as Illinois and Tennessee and led to several houses being condemned, were both directly due to the drilling.
More: Government Confirms Earthquakes are Fracking Related - The Pontiac Tribune
Injection of wastewater into wells deep underground in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas, is causing the quakes, which had a magnitude of 3 (M3) and above, though the process of fracking, itself, is only occasionally the culprit. The wastewater is a chemically questionable byproduct of fracking, which injects a mixture of water, sand, and undisclosed chemicals at high pressure to free oil and gas from rock underground. Once this chemical – laden soup has been used in the process, it is unfit for any purpose, and must be filtered and then re – injected into the earth in wells or stored in pits.
From the early 1970s until 2008, the areas in question averaged about 21 magnitude 3 or greater quakes per year, but this rate shot up dramatically between 2008 – 2013, to 99. In 2014, alone, there were a staggering 659 such tremors. Most of these induced quakes were seismically between M3 – M4, which can be felt by most people, but generally don’t cause any damage; however, in 2011, an M5.3 quake near Trinidad, Colorado, which was the largest in that area since 1967, and an M5.6 in Prague Oklahoma, which was felt in 17 states as far away as Illinois and Tennessee and led to several houses being condemned, were both directly due to the drilling.
More: Government Confirms Earthquakes are Fracking Related - The Pontiac Tribune
