Oil and gas representatives in Oklahoma would prefer its state legislators let them determine whether there’s a link to hydraulic fracking and the hundreds of small-scale earthquakes the state has experienced in the last few years.
That’s like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
Monday’s 4.7 temblor capped a week in which more than seven quakes were recorded.
For the year, Oklahoma has had more than 725 quakes of magnitude 3 or greater. That’s up from 585 for all of 2014.
With the onset of horizontal hydraulic fracking in the production of natural gas the state has witnessed a steep increase in earthquakes over the last five years.
The extraction process is somewhat ferocious. First, explosives are used to render cracks thousands of feet deep into the shale. To keep the cracks open, a water-based solution is pumped underground.
Disruptive? No doubt.
What compounds the damage is that then big wells are drilled deep underground to store the wastewater, which is transferred at extremely high pressures.
AS A HUB of the hydrocarbon industry, Cushing, Okla., has one of the world’s largest networks of storage facilities. To its decided disadvantage, the town is situated above the Cushing Fault Line, a long-dormant geologic fault that, like a sleeping giant, is being reawakened by what scientists suspect is the fracking process.
To put the tanks — which were never built to withstand an earthquake — at risk, would be a disaster of epic proportion.
Legislators must weigh the advantages and disadvantages the oil and gas industry is bringing to Oklahoma. Public safety, surely, will tip the balance in how they decide to proceed. Right?
— Susan Lynn
