Environment, Politics

Oklahoma Study Finds Link Between Wastewater Injection And Earthquakes

Deep_injection_wellWe recently discussed how Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe, who chairs the Environment and Public Works Committee, mocked the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world on global warming. There have been similar denials of the link between earthquakes and the highly profitable practice of injecting wastewater into the ground from oil and gas production. Now, Oklahoma geologists have found strong evidence of the long-suggested link between waste injection and the massive increase in earthquakes in the state.

Farmers in states like Nebraska have been protesting state boards that continue this disposal technique, as we discussed in this story out of Kansas. These boards are often criticized as stacked with pro-industry members who refuse to consider the rising objections over contamination and earthquakes.

Oklahoma is recording 2-1/2 earthquakes daily of a magnitude 3 or greater, a seismicity rate 600 times greater than observed before 2008. Average people have to pay for the damage and injuries as these companies dump and move on in a highly profitable enterprise.

Despite the past denials, the increase has been astonishing in a relatively short time. In 2014, the state recorded 585 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater. In 2013, the number was 109 in 2013. Prior to 2008, Oklahoma averaged less than two a year.

The injection practice is in a part a result of the controversial system of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which generates huge amounts of wastewater. However, most of the waste is coming from other industry sources.

Despite the conclusions of the study, the industry remains opposed to any action at this time. Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association (OKOGA) President Chad Warmington issued a statement stating, “There may be a link between earthquakes and disposal wells, but we… still don’t know enough about how wastewater injection impacts Oklahoma’s underground faults.” In other worlds, it is nothing to get all shook up over.

Source: Yahoo

56 thoughts on “Oklahoma Study Finds Link Between Wastewater Injection And Earthquakes”

  3. The opening paragraph here is comparing apples to oranges, apparently in an effort to invoke a greedy conservative energy industry-loving bogey. By “the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world” the post apparently refers to the corrupt and forthrightly politicized Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, amply critiqued, for example, by Canadian journalist Donna Laframboisie.

    https://nofrakkingconsensus.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/delinquentteenager_sample.pdf

  4. Ah, the vaunted public transportation.
    The left does love itself de trains, though they can’t seem to make them run on time.

    Look, when Leonardo Decaprio starts riding buses, and Michelle rides coach in a 23 inch seat, I’ll agree with you.

    But as it stands, public transportation is what the elite want the proles to use, Cattle cars from their sleeping stalls to their milking stations.
    It’s all about control, environmental concerns are just the means to that end.

    No liberty for you!

  6. Pogo

    It was a dollar more. In Canada it is almost twice. In Europe it is from three times to four times more. The impact of having personal transportation comes at a cost. The dollar in taxes could go a long way to enhance public transportation. No one has the right to pollute our world if it can be avoided.

    Increased costs of gas foster technology and public transportations to offset the costs. Reagan’s giving Detroit a temporary slide helped destroy the US auto industry. Those countries where gas is more expensive: Germany, Japan, France, etc. have seen their auto industries grow due to necessary increases in technological advancements related to emissions and milage. Do the math.

  7. Dear Gary, whys should anyone have to put up with earth quakes so that the oil and gas companies can make more money. The truth of the matter is the the quakes will become more severe as time goes on just as the cave ins of over mined coal mines and the subsequent fires in those mines continue to burden people to this very day.

    The oil and gas companies knew this would happen and so did their bought and paid for Congress members, state legislators and regulators but the risk was worth it because it WASN’T THEY WHO WAS TAKING THE RISK! Who does our government work for any way?

  8. The evidence appears clear that wastewater injection causes these earthquakes, in much the same way that large manmade reservoirs have done in the past.

    But my friends keep conflating this fact with fracking, which is only indirectly true. There is no evidence that the act of fracking (injecting a million gallons of slicky-fied water) causes the earthquakes, but that injecting wastewater (orders of magnitude more water) does.

    Oil and gas production makes wastewater happen, whether by fracking or by the conventional sort. The increase in earthquakes has to do directly with the increase in injecting wastewater (as opposed to other methods), and inidrectly with the increase in oil and gas production.

    To blame the wastewater earthquakes directly on fracking makes us appear to be as superstitiously ignorant as our right-wing brethren often seem to be. Let’s don’t be like (our stereotype of) them.

  9. I grew up in the heart of bituminous coal country, Westsylvania, northern Appalachia, thinking that rivers were supposed to run orange. Really. At the risk of sounding profane, the best advice I ever got from my grandfather was simple, “don’t shit where you eat.” He always shook his head when he said that, in his house at the end of a red dog road.

    We’ll be mitigating the abandoned remnants of the last coal boom forever–gods help us what this mountain top removal and waste water injection will bring us because, while we sure do need the jobs, we’re shitting all over the place and the one thing time has taught us is that it ALWAYS comes back to haunt us.

  10. Earthquakes seldom do much damage. We need the oil and gas to ship overseas. Right Inhoff?
    OAKlahoma, where the sun comes beating down the plain!

    We don’t call em Oakies for nuttin.

  11. “1. The U.S. Postal Service, which doesn’t impose surcharges and is already in dire financial condition, said a 1-cent increase in the price of gas translates to about $7 million in added costs for its operations.

    2. A $20 increase in the cost of a barrel of oil cuts 0.4 percentage points off growth in gross domestic product and increases unemployment by 0.1 percent.

    3. A February 2011 study from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that of each dollar Americans spend on food, 7 cents is tied to the cost of energy.

    4. Florida’s Miami-Dade County Public Schools, the fourth-biggest district in the United States …For every 10-cent increase in the price of diesel fuel, the district pays an additional $333,000, according to Patricia Snell, the district’s transportation director.“

  13. “If gas was a dollar more-taxes to be used for environmental purposes, jobs, etc, good stuff-no one would be the worse off.”

    Well, only the poor and working class.
    But suck it up, right?

  14. This is Oklahoma and since it is a right wing state, who cares. They are simply getting what they voted for and they can enjoy what their politicians have allowed.

  15. “wastewater injection sites—areas where toxic water left over from oil drilling and fracking processes is injected into the ground between impermeable layers of rocks to avoid polluting freshwater…”

    1. We could stop drilling for oil, give the money to the Sauds, and see $4 per gallon again in a fortnight, or we could come up with an alternative to wastewater injection that also avoids polluting freshwater.

    “Abers and his colleagues dug up data on the rates and volumes of liquids associated with the wastewater injection sites. They then modeled the flow of the water and calculated the physical properties of the rocks … so doing the team determined that a relatively small number of wastewater injection sites …may have the ability after all to induce relatively strong earthquakes …throughout the state.”

    2. it’s a computer model. I am unimpressed by computer models after the garbage the climate changers have thrown at us.

    Nevertheless, the earthquakes are real enough, and I agree that it is “very unlikely the result of a natural process.”

    What to do?

    “Ken Carlson, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Colorado State University, explained that there are ways to fix the problem. According to Carlson, the link between wastewater wells and earthquakes doesn’t necessarily mean the practice should be shut down, but that water management should be improved by drilling more wells and increasing recycling.”

    Huh.

  18. It never ceases to amaze how easily people roll over on the environment to save a few pennies at the pump. If gas was a dollar more-taxes to be used for environmental purposes, jobs, etc, good stuff-no one would be the worse off. If fact we did just fine when it was a dollar more not to long ago; but that dollar went for yachts, private jets, and shareholder dividends.

    The concept of ‘pay at the pump’ should include any and all damage done to the earth. Coal would not be so cheap if the damage the open strip mining techniques do to the environment was fully repaired. An extra dollar levied on gas prices would go a long way to fund civic projects and health care. This equals more and higher paid jobs which equals more wealth and taxes. Higher gas prices would also fuel alternative energy. The hydrogen fuel cell car would come on line a lot quicker if gas prices were higher. Over the past sixty years ingenuity has increased and dropped with gas prices. The perfect example of how we all lose is Reagan’s exempting the SUV from emissions and milage mandates by allowing it to be classified as a truck. This happy little moment from the Gipper gave the US auto industry one momentary step forward and three back. Detroit eventually lost due to the lack of advancement in the technology that other countries mastered. The fast and easy buck always costs more in the long run. This has graphically been illustrated with the messes made by Reagan, then the midget cowboy.

    At the very least American should be intelligent enough to include a ‘clean up’ cost in the price of what they consume. A well funded environmental protection and repair industry would provide more jobs, a healthier environment, and be a negligible financial burden. This has been proven in enough cases throughout the more enlightened countries of the Western World.

  19. Despite being a climate science skeptic, and being lumped into a category of scientifically blind or politically motivated advocacy, I think I would concede that the evidence here suggests strongly that these mini-earthquakes are being caused by fracking.
    Of course I would then have to ask, what are the average Richter Scale sizes, and what actual damage has been done to property.
    If there is damage done, and Richters size 3 are rather small, then a class action suit is in order, but I would rather see a claims system set up up by the fracking companies.

  20. Any kid who ever dug a tunnel under a hill of sand knows that sooner or later the weight of the sand on top will collapse the tunnel. Maybe our scientists should spend a little more time with their kids?

    Regards and goodwill blogging.

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