DisastersDallas area earthquakes were caused by fracking: geophysicists

Three earthquakes that hit a Dallas suburb last week could be connected to fracking operations, according to a local geophysicist who studies earthquakes in the region.

RT reports that the earthquakes were considered minor, with the biggest one registered at a 3.4 on the Richter scale. No injuries were reported despite many emergency calls.

Cliff Frolich, a senior scientific researcher and associate director at the University of Texas, believes the earthquakes are related.

In a study published in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences in August 2012, Frolich found that sixty-seven earthquakes occurred between November 2009 and December 2011 within a 70-kilometer grid where fracking occurs over the northern Texas Barnett shale formation. Twenty-four of the earthquakes, where the epicenter could be reliably mapped, occurred within three kilometers of the injection wells for wastewater disposal from fracking.

Fracking is the extractions of shale gas and oil trapped in rock strata beneath the surface. High pressure chemical-laden water is pumped into an underground geological formation to force out oil and gas. After fractures have opened up in the rock and the water pressure decreases, the fluids are forced to the surface.

The dirty water which is left is pumped back into the ground, a process which has led to fears that water table will be polluted with severe health consequences. Fracking is also used to extract oil from wells that have been exhausted using traditional methods.

California is experiencing similar problems as it is one of the largest oil and gas producing states in the country. With no regulations in place, companies are fracking more wells every day, which is concerning residents.

“I didn’t buy here thinking this was going to happen in my backyard. I would have had second thoughts about living here.” Gary Gless, a Los Angeles resident, who lives just a few miles from the Inglewood Oil Field, told RT.

Residents not only find the process annoying, but they are also worried about the foundations of their houses and what an earthquake could do to their homes. “The foundations, I don’t know what is going on under my house. If we do get an earthquake, I’m sure that with all these cracks it will probably rip it all open.” Rosa Tatum told RT.

The oil and gas industry has launched a public relations campaign in an effort to alleviate concerns of the public and those who oppose fracking.  The industry claims that fracking is safe and has been used for decades. Fracking has been going on since the early 1950s, but has taken off in the last seven years. In 2005 the country’s shale gas production was four percent; today it is twenty-four percent.

Dave Quast, from Energy in Depth told RT: “The 1.2 million times that fracking has occurred in this country there has not been a single incident of reported water contamination.”

Quast’s statement has not stopped groups from doing their own research. PXP, an oil company that operates a field next to Gless’s home is conducting a study into the effects fracking has on the neighborhoods they operate in, but locals are not convinced the company has the people’s interest.

“These fossil fuel giants influence policy enormously. They spent $747 million lobbying Congress to get this Safe Drinking Water Act exemption. That is a contamination of our democracy,” Josh Fox, director of the Oscar nominated documentary “Gasland,” told RT.

According to Brenda Norton, an activist with the Food and Water Watch, fracking is completely unregulated and in California and oil and gas companies do not have to say where they are fracking and what chemicals are being used in the process, which has the potential to contaminate drinking water.

U.S. Geological Survey seismologist Oliver Boyd agrees that there is a link between wastewater injection and earthquakes. “Most, if not all, geophysicists expect induced earthquakes to be more likely from wastewater injection rather than hydrofracking,” Boyd told RT.