Tremor about half an hour ago in Arroyo Grande, San Luis Obispo

[petronius]

18. Truthout recently had an article about offshore fracking in CA

A Truthout investigation has confirmed that federal regulators approved at least two hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," operations on oil rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel off the coast of California since 2009 without an updated environmental review that critics say may be required by federal law.

The offshore fracking operations are smaller than the unconventional onshore operations that have sparked nationwide controversy, but environmental advocates are still concerned that regulators and the industry have not properly reviewed the potential impacts of using modern fracking technology in the Pacific outer continental shelf.

--- Snip ---

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/17765-special-investigation-fracking-in-the-ocean-off-the-california-coast

And I also found a nice GoogleMap of offshore platform locations:

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111319004411642369478.000486bb8f4a093872b83

And here's a cool map of fracking locations in general:

http://www.fracfocusdata.org/DisclosureSearch/MapSearch.aspx


From what I can tell, though, the platforms near SLO are not those where fracking has occurred (yet). And I'd be pretty leary of attributing any individual quake here to human causes; 4.2 quakes occur quite commonly without any help from us. But I agree that these fracking developments are advancing without proper oversight and analysis, and that is a cause for concern.

Hope the crows settled down without being too annoying...