Expert: Wastewater well in Ohio triggered quakes

[Omaha Steve]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20120103/D9S15DO82.html

By THOMAS J. SHEERAN

CLEVELAND (AP) - A northeast Ohio well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and gas drilling almost certainly caused a series of 11 minor quakes in the Youngstown area since last spring, a seismologist investigating the quakes said Monday.

Research is continuing on the now-shuttered injection well at Youngstown and seismic activity, but it might take a year for the wastewater-related rumblings in the earth to dissipate, said John Armbruster of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N.Y.

Brine wastewater dumped in wells comes from drilling operations, including the so-called fracking process to extract gas from underground shale that has been a source of concern among environmental groups and some property owners. Injection wells have also been suspected in quakes in Astabula in far northeast Ohio, and in Arkansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma, Armbruster said.

Thousands of gallons of brine were injected daily into the Youngstown well that opened in 2010 until its owner, Northstar Disposal Services LLC, agreed Friday to stop injecting the waste into the earth as a precaution while authorities assessed any potential links to the quakes.

FULL story at link.

[gristy]

1. Small earthquakes are going to be the least of the problems caused by fracking.

The press this has been getting is a distraction from much larger environmental problems.

[valerief]

2. Well, as long as rich people got richer and no rich people were hurt, no harm done.

American citizens? The .01% doesn't give a flying fuck about American citizens.

[Orrex]

3. It's hard to believe that a technology intended to crack rocks could, well, crack rocks

Who could possibly have foreseen that injecting thousands of gallons of pressurized lubricant into the strata could possibly have a negative impact?

[Quantess]

6. Indeed!

The same people who say that humans are egomaniacs to think that we could affect the global climate are probably saying something similar about this.

Not only are they thinking that the bearded guy God was competely the cause of the earthquakes, but also "God frowns upon hubris", or something. That seismic researchers are hand in hand with satan for letting people believe that humans have that kind of power.

[midnight]

4. "Earthquake Outbreak: Arkansas Bans Fracking Operations Inside Thousand-Square-Mile Area"

Earthquake Outbreak: Arkansas Bans Fracking Operations Inside Thousand-Square-Mile Area
As if radioactive wastewater, exploding wells and flammable tap water weren’t bad enough, fracking has now been tied to another environmental threat – earthquakes, thousands of them. Geologists have tied fracking wastewater disposal wells in central Arkansas to an outbreak of more than 1,200 so-called “minor earthquakes” (an oxymoron if ever there was one). At least one startled resident is suing the responsible gas companies for the significant damage one of those earthquakes caused to his home.

The good news is common sense has prevailed in Arkansas. According to the Democrat-Gazette, the state’s Oil and Gas Commission has voted to ban fracking wastewater disposal wells within a 1,150-square-mile area north of Conway in the Fayetteville Shale region. According to the Arkansas Geological Survey (AGS), the fracking operations were taking place on top of an active fault line.

So much for environmental impact studies.

Before the ban was instituted, a months-long moratorium had been in place while geologists determined whether the fracking operations – conducted by BHP Billiton Petroleum, Chesapeake Operating and Clarita Operating – were indeed causing the tremors. AGS official Scott Ausbrooks reports that a lattice of subsurface cracks and fissures provided passageways for the fracking fluids to reach the fault and cause the earthquakes. The quakes, all registering below 4.7 in magnitude, began rolling across the countryside after the injections began. After the operations stopped, the number of earthquakes dropped by two-thirds.

For those of you who have been living on another planet, hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is an ultra-aggressive and highly controversial process for extracting natural gas from rock formations deep beneath the earth’s surface. The process injects enormous volumes of pressurized fluid – water, sand and a mixture of toxic chemicals like benzene and xylene – into the ground to release natural gas from shale deposits, like Fayetteville Shale in central Arkansas.http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=27074

[Overseas]

5. Sad K&R. Glad we know the cause.

So sorry the cause is the powerful multinational oil giants.