"Fracking" Is The Likely Cause Of Texas Earthquakes

(This image is from napavalley.edu.)

Fracking is the pumping of huge amounts of water, sand, and dangerous chemicals into the ground to cause or increase fractures in the rock, which releases natural gas. There is a heated debate going on about the safety of this fracking. Gas companies claim it is a safe procedure. Many others disagree, claiming it poisons the earth around it and the water many communities depend on.

Now there are claims that this fracking is having another negative effect. That it is causing earthquakes in Texas (and Oklahoma) -- areas that have been earthquake-free for eons, but having been experiencing them since 2008 (when fracking became common in the area).

Is this true? Very likely. Now there is some scientific evidence that those earthquakes, some as large as a magnitude 4, are being caused by fracking. Here is part of an excellent article on this by Anna Kuchment in the Dallas Morning News:

Scientists presented new evidence this week suggesting that all five North Texas earthquake sequences, including those in Dallas, have been triggered by humans.   

Until now, researchers have not commented on the cause of the Dallas-Irving quakes or the 4-magnitude quake that struck Venus, 30 miles south of Dallas, in May.

While scientists believe that high-volume injection wells may have triggered the quakes in Venus, they have not yet worked out a specific mechanism behind the Dallas and Irving quakes.

“We don’t think they’re natural,” SMU seismologist Heather DeShon told The Dallas Morning News.  “But we don’t understand the subsurface physics surrounding the Irving earthquake sequence, so we’re still considering all causes.”

DeShon’s comments came during the annual American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, where she and her colleagues presented their latest research on North Texas ground shaking. The research has not yet been independently vetted and published.

“Any discussion of causation for the Dallas-area quakes is premature, and more speculative than scientific,” said Steve Everley, a senior advisor for Energy In Depth, a program of the Independent Petroleum Association of America. “But the SMU team has helped advance our understanding of the conditions that can ultimately lead to induced seismicity, so we’re eager to see what they will publish about the seismic events near Dallas.”

Evidence that human activity is behind the Dallas quakes includes a new analysis showing that the faults beneath Dallas and Fort Worth had been dormant for hundreds of millions of years until 2008, the year felt earthquakes first began rumbling through the area. . . .

Earlier this week, SMU seismologist Beatrice Magnani compared North Texas faults with those known to have produced earthquakes over geologic time. Active faults have visible ruptures, while the small faults that the SMU team has mapped in Azle and Venus have barely perceptible ones.

Unlike historically active faults, those in North Texas also do not extend into the uppermost layers of sediment.  Faults that have been active over hundreds of millions of years typically disturb the uppermost layers of the Earth’s crust, said Magnani.

“Those faults are dead, and they have just been rejuvenated. That is the most reasonable conclusion,” said Magnani, referring to the faults beneath North Texas. . . .

DeShon and her colleagues pointed to the absence of earthquakes in the Dallas-Fort Worth area prior to 2008 as additional evidence that recent tremors are caused by industrial activity. Since 2008, North Texas has had 200 earthquakes large enough to be included in the U.S. Geological Survey’s catalog. Thirty-one quakes have been larger than 3-magnitude.

Magnani said the state’s earthquake rate is on track to be a factor of 20 greater than historic levels. That pales in comparison to Oklahoma, which has seen a 600-fold increase in quakes. Oklahoma’s geological survey said in April that its quakes are triggered by the injection of wastewater from oil and gas operations into deep wells. Studies have found that pressure from the injections can, in rare cases, disturb deep faults. . . .

EPA Finally Admits "Fracking" Pollutes Drinking Water

It looks like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is finally coming to realize something that most people with half a brain already knew -- that the gas production method called "fracking" does pollute ground drinking water sources.

Here is the conclusion reached by the EPA study:

Through this national-level assessment, we have identified potential mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing could affect drinking water resources. Above ground mechanisms can affect surface and ground water resources and include water withdrawals at times or in locations of low water availability, spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid and chemicals or produced water, and inadequate treatment and discharge of hydraulic fracturing wastewater. Below ground mechanisms include movement of liquids and gases via the production well into underground drinking water resources and movement of liquids and gases from the fracture zone to these resources via pathways in subsurface rock formations.

24. We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more of these mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells. The cases occurred during both routine activities and accidents and have resulted in impacts to surface or ground water. Spills of hydraulic fracturing fluid and produced water in certain cases have reached drinking water resources, both surface and ground water. Discharge of treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater has increased contaminant concentrations in receiving surface waters. Below ground movement of fluids, including gas, most likely via the production well, have contaminated drinking water resources. In some cases, hydraulic fracturing fluids have also been directly injected into drinking water resources, as defined in this assessment, to produce oil or gas that co-exists in those formations. 

(NOTE -- The image above is from green-4-u.com.)

There's much more, and although the EPA tries to downplay the effects somewhat (probably to placate the giant oil and gas companies, and their GOP lackeys in Congress), it's a really scary assessment. Fracking DOES affect our drinking water, and the more it happens, the more water will be affected.

Green Party Says "Fracking" Is Neither Inevitable Nor Unbeatable

Energy companies, and to a large extent federal and state governments, have been touting "fracking" as an answer to the energy problems facing this nation. (Fracking is the injection of water and dangerous chemicals into the ground to force natural gas to the surface where it can be harvested.) Unfortunately, those chemicals are believed to be poisoning both the earth and the ground water where it is being used, and it also wastes millions of gallons of water in areas of the country (like Texas) where water is a scarce resource.

But the problems of fracking have been covered up or glossed over in many areas, in the name of short-term corporate profits -- and as we know, in our corporate-controlled economy short-term profits are the only thing that matters (regardless of what that does to our environment or long-term economic outlook). But all may not be lost -- at least not yet.

The Green Party is now speaking out on the subject, and they say with a little effort that fracking may not be either "inevitable or unbeatable". Here is how Green Party Shadow Cabinet member Steve Breyman (pictured above) describes the party's position in an October 3rd memo:

High-volume hydraulic fracturing (better known as “fracking”), the process by which more and more oil and gas in the United States is produced, is good at some near-term things. It’s brought down natural gas prices for consumers. It’s resulted in several boom-towns across America’s shale formations. It’s brought back to life old wells uneconomical to pump through other means. It’s generated significant funds for gas companies and some lucky leaseholders. It’s created thousands of jobs. It’s plowed much needed tax revenues into a few state and local government coffers.

But that’s the problem—fracking is all about now. Fracking is the latest example of short-term political-economic thinking: boom and bust, get-rich-quick. It’s the present moment’s version of the same-old same-old extractive, penetrative, violent resource exploitation model that’s reigned for most of U.S. history. The same model that has us prop up the Saudi royal family, regularly foul our oceans, coastlines and rivers, clear cut forests, carve years off the lives of millions from dirty air, blow the tops off of mountains, spend several hundreds of billions annually on sea lane protection and ‘stabilization operations,’ and load the atmosphere with carbon.

Natural gas is hardly “the bridge [fuel] to the future,” as described by the Obama administration and other proponents. Its current abundance and relative affordability—barring full-cost accounting—postpones the transition to a green energy future. Fracking for gas fragments forests, poisons nearby air and the people who breathe it, threatens scarce fresh water aquifers, crowds rural roads with particulate spewing trucks, and spreads STDs, among other predictable delights.

Fracked gas corrupts state legislators and the Environmental Protection Agency (which does its darnedest to cover up fracking’s effects on ecosystem and human health). It leads to calls for LNG export facilities. Fracking unfairly competes with wind and solar to generate electricity (because, among other reasons, the practice is exempt from the several federal environmental laws which would restrict or make it illegal). Fracking requires a giant network of new pipelines and compressor stations, results in an extraordinary volume of toxic and sometimes radioactive waste water (sure to come back to haunt us no matter how deeply we inject it into the earth), stimulates earthquakes in the most unlikely of places, and divides communities.

Fracking corrupts scientists (and their university-housed minions) on gas company payrolls, tempts corporate-affiliated national environmental groups to back it, justifies cowardly “all of the above” energy policies, and stunts non-fossil fuel research and development. Fracking in Texas’ Barnett Shale—in the midst of a drought of biblical proportions—has several towns literally running out of water. Fracking for oil in North Dakota leads to the flaring of natural gas, a gross waste and major cause of disintegrating air quality. Fracking in floodplains brings us the spectacle of drowned wells and untold toxic chemicals on the loose in Colorado after three months of rain fell in twenty-four hours (an extreme weather event made more likely by burning natural gas and other dead dinosaurs).

Fracking is inherently sneaky and dishonest. Land men work their magic to swindle country folk out of a fair return for their mineral rights, and make it very difficult to ever get out of a contract (even after its expiration). Oil companies secretly frack for oil in the Santa Barbara Channel (location of the infamous 1969 spill), hiding the activity from regulators and the public. Fracking firms refuse to divulge the full contents of the frightening cocktail known as frack fluid. No one (including the U.S. Geological Survey) can say with a high degree of certainty how much gas actually lies buried in one-time biomass, subject to sedimentation, volcanic activity and pressure of hundreds of millions of years. Gas companies spoil drinking water wells then force victims to sign confidentiality agreements as part of settlements (enabling the firms to continue to lie about their records). Emergency room physicians in Pennsylvania are barred from explaining to patients that fracking was the likely culprit for their acute or chronic ailments.  Fracking is so seductive that even California—laboratory for nearly every good energy and environmental policy of the past half century—is unable to pass legislation that ensures environmental health.

Fracking is not, however, inevitable or unbeatable. The fierce and growing resistance in New York to pumping millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals under extraordinary pressure thousands of feet below the surface has stayed the hand of a governor (with presidential aspirations) otherwise eager to say yes. A recent poll in New York found opposition to fracking at a historic high. Earth First!ers stage tree sits to stymie further destruction in the Keystone State. The University of Tennessee failed to solicit a single bid for the right to plunder its thousands of acres of forest. Smart investors are selling leases and otherwise getting out before the inevitable bust. Fracking has likely already peaked. Intensified public pressure on elected and appointed officials must make sure of that.  

TRC Tries To Cover For Gas Drilling Contamination

Recently there has been a lot of new drilling in the Barnett Shale formation around and to the west of Fort Worth. These companies doing the drilling are supposed to be using methods that will prevent the poisoning of both the air and water near the drilling sites, but that doesn't always happen.

Recently the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found that the drilling company Range Resources of Fort Worth had contaminated the ground water of at least two families with benzene, methane and other toxic gases. They ordered the company to provide the families with clean drinking water -- a reasonable request. But when the company had failed to comply with the order a month later, the EPA filed a suit against the company in District Court.

Now the Texas Railroad Commission (TRC), the mis-named commission in charge of overseeing oil and gas drilling in the state, is acting to try and protect the corporation. The three-member commission voted unanimously to declare that the EPA was wrong when it said the drilling was responsible for the water contamination. They claim the contamination was a natural occurrence and had nothing to do with the drilling for natural gas.

I guess they think the benzene, methane and other toxic gases just magically appeared in the water. The declaration of the TRC might be barely believable if only one substance had contaminated the water, but the mix of toxic gases providing the contamination had to have been introduced from the outside. And it would be nearly impossible for anyone but the drilling company to contaminate the water located far underground.

Meanwhile, the EPA stands by its initial investigation. They issued a statement saying, "The decision by the Texas Railroad Commission is not supported by EPA's independent, scientific investigation, which concluded that Range Resources Corporation and Range Production Company have contributed to the contamination of homeowners' drinking water wells. EPA stands by the order issued to Range Resources and seeks to secure Range's full compliance."

So once again we are left with the state of Texas trying to snub its nose at the EPA -- something the state has a history of doing. Texas is already in court trying to prevent the EPA from forcing the state's corporations to clean up their emissions (because Texas is the biggest polluter of any of the states). Now they are fighting to allow the corporations to pollute under the earth as well.

The two agencies in question have far different reputations. The EPA has a long history of acting in the best interest of American citizens to clean up our water and air. The Railroad Commission has a history of acting to protect corporate interests to the detriment of the environment and the health of Texas citizens. Frankly, it looks like both agencies are living up to their reputations.

Time To Eliminate Gas Production Tax Cut

Back in 1989 the Texas budget was in good shape, so the legislature acted to help the gas industry. In an effort to spur more gas drilling, they gave the gas industry huge tax cuts to develop the technology to drill for natural gas in places where it was much more difficult to get. And it worked. The technology was developed and there has been a huge increase in drilling in those areas (most notably the Barnett Shale).

Things are different now. Due to Republican mismanagement the state is mired in recession and faces a budget shortfall for the next biennium of about $27 billion. And there are some who think it's time for the tax cuts for the gas companies to end. The technology has been developed and is being used every day. Now that tax cut just goes to fattening the bank accounts of the giant gas producers.

State Rep. Lon Burnam (D-Fort Worth) has introduced a bill to repeal these tax cuts. Burnam (pictured) says they are no longer needed and repealing them will put about $2.3 billion over the next biennium. That wouldn't fix the budget shortfall, but it would certainly be a good start. And amazingly, it looks like at least some Republicans are willing to at least consider the idea.

State Senator Steve Ogden (R-Bryan), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is saying that "everything" is on the table. He's considering appointing a sub-committee to examine removing the unneeded tax cut.

I suspect the move to consider the tax removal is little more than a publicity gimmick by the Republicans. When their draconian budget cuts result in the lay-off of 100,000 teachers and tanks the Texas economy, they want to be able to say they considered all ideas and were "forced" to make the cuts. It's not true (much could be done to avert or minimize those budget cuts), but that is the story they'll be trying to sell to the citizens.

The tax should be repealed. It has served its purpose and is no longer needed. And Texas needs those companies to pay their share of taxes to help pull the state out of the mess the Republicans have put it in. But what should happen and what will happen are two different things.

Texas Republican leadership in Austin sold out to the corporate interests long ago, and their actions regularly favor corporations over citizens. It is very unlikely that this sensible bill will ever make it out of the legislature, and if by some miracle it did, Texas' corporate-owned governor would probably veto it.

This is a good bill and it would help the citizens of Texas. That's why the Republicans will kill it.

Cause Of Gas Explosion Still Unknown

About a month and a half ago, a natural gas pipeline fractured near the rural town of Bushland in the Texas Panhandle. There was an explosion that sent flames over 700 feet into the air, and a nearby home was burned to the ground. The explosion rattled windows in Amarillo several miles away, and it took two hours to get the pipeline shut down and the fire under control.

It is still unclear just what caused the pipeline to fracture and explode. El Paso Natural Gas, who owns the pipeline, said there was no corrosion involved, no leaks and no defects in a weld connecting the pipes at the junction. In other words, they just don't know how or why the pipeline exploded.

They are moving the pipeline a little farther from the town though. After they have updated the pipeline, it will not be closer than 400-600 feet from any residence in Bushland (population 1500).

Are you listening Fort Worth? Do you think this can't happen to you. Driven by greed, the Fort Worth City Council has approved the drilling for natural gas in its newly renovated downtown area. Making matters even worse, many property owners inside the city and its suburbs have also signed leases to allow the gas companies to drill.

These politicians and citizens have virtually set off a ticking time bomb inside their own city. I'm sure they all believe nothing can happen. After all, the gas companies have assured them they will be safe and all precautions will be taken. But don't you think the people of Bushland were told the same thing?

Not only will there be gas drilling in the city limits, but to transport that gas there will be miles of pipelines criss-crossing the city. It's not a matter of if, but when an explosion similar to the one in Bushland happens in Fort Worth. And that explosion will be a lot worse and cause a lot more damage in an urban or suburban area.

Wake up Fort Worth! The few dollars you are putting into your pockets now are small payment for what the future destruction will be. It's time to throw the gas companies out and outlaw drilling within the city limits.

Gas Drilling Polluting The Metroplex

I have posted several times about how insane it is to drill for natural gas in metropolitan areas. I think it is not only ugly and damaging to the environment, but it poses a danger to the urban citizens. Of course, no one listened. There was too much money being offered by the gas companies and greed got the best of common sense.

Several metroplex cities have allowed the drilling within their city limits, including the city of Fort Worth. In fact, Fort Worth is allowing the drilling to even go on in its downtown area -- an insane idea for a city spending millions to revitalize the downtown.

I wasn't the only one talking about how bad an idea this was. SMU professor of engineering Al Armendariz put some figures together and tried to warn people that allowing urban gas drilling would pollute the metroplex as much as all the automobiles in the DFW area.

Vehicle traffic puts about 120 tons of pollution into the air of the DFW metroplex area each and every day. Armendariz estimated the gas drilling puts 112 tons of pollution into the metroplex air each day. Of course, the gas companies cried and whined about Armendariz's numbers, and said it couldn't be anywhere near that bad.

So the SMU professor recalculated, using data collected by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). The recalculation, using TCEQ figures, shows that Armendariz was right. The new figure showed the gas companies are dumping a minimum of 90 tons of pollution into the air each day.

Most gas drilling in the past has been in rural areas and therefore doesn't add to an already unsafe pollution problem. But it's different in the DFW area. This area is already in trouble with the EPA for its poor air quality, and is cracking down on motorists to try and improve the air quality.

There were two main causes of the air pollution in the past -- auto & trucks and big business polluters (like electric companies, cement kilns, etc.). The state and local governments have refused to make big business clean up its act, and have put the onus for the clean-up on motorists, making it much more expensive to own and drive a car. This, of course, punishes the poor much more than the rich (because mass transit is rudimentary at best in the area).

A reasonable person would expect the TCEQ to take some action to prevent the gas drillers from polluting the air and destroying what progress is being made with cleaning up autos. But they aren't. They claim they can't single out the urban drillers, since they don't require the rural drillers to clean up their act. I admit I don't understand that. It's a different and troubled environment, and needs different rules.

And citizens can't expect any help from the Railroad Commission, which is supposed to control the drillers. That commission doesn't even try to get these companies to follow the present rules in force. They're not about to force the drillers to use safer and greener procedures.

A bill was introduced in the past session of the legislature to force the drillers to use greener procedures and stop much of the urban pollution. But it never made it through the Republican-controlled legislature. There was just too much gas company money finding its way into campaign coffers.

Just another example of Republicans protecting corporations at the expense of the ordinary citizens. Just business as usual!

Railroad Commission Misuses 1965 Law

Once again Texas Republicans show that in a showdown between citizens and corporations, they will always go with the big money and side with the corporations. The Republican-dominated Railroad Commission has turned a 1965 law on its head and misused it to allow natural gas drillers to drill in urban areas, even when the property owners do not want the drilling on or under their property.

The 43 year-old law was originally passed to protect property owners. It said a drilling company couldn't just sign a few leases and then drill in an area, but had to include all the property owners in the affected area. But instead of using the law to protect property owners, the Railroad Commission has used it to allow drillers to force property owners to let them drill, even when they oppose the drilling.

The practice is called "force pooling" and a few gas companies banded together (Finley Resources, Chesapeake Energy, Dale Resources) to convince the Railroad Commission to use the law in a new way -- a way that would allow them to force property owners to cooperate with them.

Finley Resources had signed leases with about 300 property owners in Fort Worth's Eastside. But there remained about 6% of the area where owners had refused to lease their property or where the owners couldn't be found. These properties were scattered throughout the drilling area.

Since the companies could not drill on or under unleased property, and that would have made drilling around them very expensive, the companies asked the Railroad Commission to use the 1965 law to force the unsigned property owners to comply. And the Republican Commission gave them that right.

This is just so wrong! Private property rights have always been sacrosanct in the state of Texas. No neighbor or corporation could force a Texan to do anything with his property that he didn't want to do. This new misuse of the "force pooling" law destroys much of that concept.

Now that it's been done once, you can expect this to become a common practice for the corporate drillers. If an owner doesn't want drilling on or under his property, they have this ruling to use as precedent and they will force that owner to comply.

This is anti-property rights and anti-Texan. Isn't it time we got rid of the Republican corporate sell-outs in our state government, before they sell the whole state to their rich corporate buddies?

Gas Wells Causing Air Pollution

The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex has a serious problem with air pollution. It is so bad that the federal government is forcing Tarrant, Dallas and the surrounding counties to take action to bring it under control. Until now, most of the blame has fallen on automobiles and certain local industries (such as the huge cement plants south of Fort Worth).

Drivers in the area must pay extra to test their car emissions, and make repairs to keep those emissions within acceptable limits. Even so, it looks like more onerous changes may soon be on the way for metroplex drivers. But it looks like another cause of a significant amount of the air pollution may have been ignored -- the production and transport of natural gas.

All gas wells must be accompanied by a storage tank. To the naked eye, these storage tanks seem innocuous enough, but infrared viewing of the tanks show a significant amount of volatile organic compounds are escaping from these tanks. These volatile organic compounds contribute to the areas ozone problem to the tune of about 38 tons of pollution every day.

This means it would make up at least 8% of the metroplex's air pollution. And it's not just the tanks leaking pollution. Compressors used to move the gas along a pipeline are also leaking the same kind of pollution into the air.

This 8% would be bad enough, but there is a push on right now to vastly expand gas production in the Barnett Shale (see above figure for the area this covers). There is even new drilling going on in residential neighborhoods and the downtown area of Fort Worth. The result of all this new drilling will be to enlarge the amount of metroplex air pollution from gas tanks and compressors.

We already knew of the ugliness, the environmental destruction, the danger of leaks and explosions, and the poisoning of ground water caused by gas drilling, and now we learn it is also significantly contributing to air pollution.

Drilling for gas in or near metropolitan areas may enrich a few people, but it is expensive and dangerous for all the people in that area. It is time for the Railroad Commission and area leaders to act in the best interests of the people.