Reply #33: This Virginia quake seems different, but injecting waste water into rock has caused seismic activity

[Overseas]

before. I am glad the probably incorrect speculation has caused more discussion about the techniques used in fracking. I don't think all concerns about fracking should be dismissed just because some people have wrongly attributed it to the Northern Virginia quake. It is convenient for natural gas PR firms to laugh at the probably incorrect linking in order to imply that all such concerns are unwarranted. That's a common PR technique-- make the opposition look hysterical, and encourage those who support the reckless technologies appear like heroes who are so courageous for taking a strong stand against the hysterical moonbats. Polarizing the issue into two camps-- Hysterical Moonbats and Those Who Support Tough Choices-- allows the oil companies to proceed with reckless technologies, instead of forcing them to curb their profits somewhat to do things more safely.

If fracking only causes smaller, shallower quakes, are those worth the extra profits from the current procedures used to extract natural gas? They're certainly worth it to those who profit directly from the sale of natural gas, but should the standards be more rigorously regulated? Should the cost of the repairs needed for the spate of minor, shallow quakes that can occur as a result of fracking be included in the oil companies' liabilities? Should oil companies be prevented from injecting toxic chemicals into porous rock that could seep into local groundwater? Should they use plain water, even though it might be slower and less profitable, in order to better protect public health?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1806584

Shortly before midnight Mountain Time on August 23, the largest earthquake in Colorado in more than a century, with a magnitude of 5.3, sent tremors as far away as Kansas. Some twelve hours later, a magnitude 5.8 earthquake centered in Northern Virginia sent shock waves as far away as Toronto. The local damage in each event did not appear extensive, though structural effects, on bridges, tunnels, nuclear power plants and more are yet to be determined.

Through the afternoon and evening of August 23rd, the national media uncovered the big story of the East Coast quake: where their colleagues posted in New York or Washington were and what they thought when they felt a bump, sway, rumble or funny feeling. But with no national correspondents already on site, the Colorado quake was left to the locals. But both quakes were profound, rippling with far-reaching lessons about our outdated and unsafe energy practices that we ignore at great peril.

1. Human activity can cause earthquakes. No less an authority than the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) asserts this. And they offer as an illustration a series of atypical Colorado quakes in the 1960s, resulting from the Army’s injection of waste fluid produced by its Rocky Mountain Arsenal chemical weapons plant northeast of Denver.

2. Seismic activity has been linked to the injection of waste water from the unconventional production of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing (also known as fracking). A southeastern New Mexico area that has been experiencing repeated earthquakes since the late 1990s are near the injection wells for oil production waste water, the New Mexico Tech Observatory has reported. In April 2011, in Arkansas, two natural gas wells were closed down until scientists can determine why over a thousand unexplained earthquakes occurred in areas near drilling sites and waste injection wells. Since the well’s closing, a supervisor at the Arkansas Geological Survey reports, incidence of earthquakes have declined dramatically, much as they did in Colorado fifty years ago.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/24/5-things-the-media-isnt-telling-you-about-human-activity-and-earthquakes/