Earth Quakes?
Ohio earthquakes rattle up concerns about fracking
By Paresh Dave
March 12, 2014, 10:41 a.m.
A fracking operation at the eastern border of Ohio remained closed Wednesday, two days after a string of earthquakes stirred some people from their sleep and prompted state regulators to investigate whether the shale-drilling may have been a cause.
Areas in the central and southern U.S. have seen a 20-fold increase in small earthquakes during the past few years, and federal scientists have said the boom in drilling for oil and natural gas has been a contributing factor.
Primarily, part of the dramatic rise has been attributed by the scientists to injection wells, where waste water from fracking is gushed back deep into the earth for storage. The fracking process of firing a mix of water and chemicals at underground rocks -- in hopes of freeing oil and gas stored inside them -- has not been a major cause for earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
But none of the seven wells near the Ohio temblors are for waste disposal, leading local officials and environmentalists to question whether fracking that began last month on one of the wells might have been enough to trigger the human-felt earthquakes.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-ohio-earthquakes-fracking-20140312,0,4938210.story#ixzz2vnxiRLsi
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