Don’t buy into the hype from government officials and cheerleaders for the oil and gas industry here. Oklahoma manmade-earthquake problem is far from solved.
The USGS recorded a 4.0 magnitude earthquake near Luther just after 6 this morning. pic.twitter.com/tssKdeouDm
— Tulsa's Channel 8 (@KTULNews) August 10, 2016
If you need the most obvious evidence just consider the two 4-0-magnitude earthquakes that rattled Luther and Cherokee last week or, better yet, consider that on August 12 the state had already experienced1,668 earthquakes in 2016 or 619 earthquakes of 2.8-magnitude or higher from January to June. The decline, respectively, is from 1,914 and 701 in 2015.
The current year’s numbers have undoubtedly already gone up as I write this.
Here’s the main takeaway: The state has gone from experiencing hardly any earthquakes since before the 5.6-magnitude earthquake hit Prague in 2011 to a massive number of earthquakes, which shake it up on an almost daily basis. Nothing has changed, really.
Oklahoma has NOT solved its earthquake problem through more regulation of disposal wells used in fracking operations. What has happened is the worldwide oil glut has reduced overall wastewater volume amounts in the wells. The regulations, adopted by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), may have had some impact or might have simply shifted earthquake swarms from one area to another, but, allow me to speculate, if oil was still selling at $100 a barrel there probably wouldn’t have been a decline at all. Oil barrel prices remain around the $40 to $45 range right now and are expected to sink even lower after the summer driving season.
I think it’s incredibly dangerous for Oklahomans and its leaders to declare a premature victory over the earthquake problem. The number of earthquakes is still incredibly large for a geographical area not prone to or prepared for them. What has been the damage to property and infrastructure here after so many years of the consistent stress from earthquakes? The oil and gas industry needs to be held legally responsible for it.
In the fracking process, water laced with chemicals is injected underground to create fissures in rock formations that release oil and gas.The water is then injected underground into what are known as disposal or injection wells. Scientists agree the injection well process is igniting previously dormant fault lines and triggering the earthquakes that rumble on a daily basis in the state.
The OCC has adopted new regulations over water volume amounts, and some injections well have even been shut down. But, again, the declining numbers correspond directly with less drilling.
People here should not grow complacent over the issue.
The larger, long-term solution is to create more energy from renewable sources, such as wind and solar power, and to lessen our overall need for fossil fuels. A short-term solution would be to issue a ban on fracking, in general, in Oklahoma, or at least a ban on injection wells, but that’s not going to happen in a “drill, baby, drill” state where fifty rich oil executives pretty much dictate their own terms with the state government.