Saturday, a few minutes before midnight, there was a M3.4 earthquake in North Texas near Mansfield, in the fracking zone.
From the Event Page, we see that it was a shallow quake withing the frackquake zone. depth=2.8km (1.7mi)
32.493°N 97.118°W
6km (4mi) NNW of Venus, Texas
8km (5mi) SSE of Mansfield, Texas
11km (7mi) W of Midlothian, Texas
14km (9mi) SE of Rendon, Texas
253km (157mi) NNE of Austin, Texas
As you can see from the map, there has been quite a bit of fracking in the area.
Why the Scientific Case Against Fracking Keeps Getting Stronger Anthony Ingraffea argues that fugitive methane emissions turn natural gas from a climate benefit into yet another strike against fossil fuels.
—By Chris Mooney for Mother Jones
Fri Aug. 15, 2014 5:00 AM EDT
About an hour of an audio interview of Tony Ingraffea talking about fracking.
For those who say we can regulate our way around this, just give us time and we’ll fix the problems—I’m sorry. We’ve had 100 years of commercial oil and gas development at very large quantities, around the world. Time is over. We’ve damaged the atmosphere too much, and it would take too long, it would take decades and billions of dollars, to begin to fix the problems that we know have existed for decades. And by then, it will be too late.
Ingraffea admits we will need fossil fuel for a while but we need to use it for specialty uses where we haven’t figured out an alternative like fuel for planes.
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The Downside of the Boom
North Dakota took on the oversight of a multibillion-dollar oil industry with a regulatory system built on trust, warnings and second chances.
By DEBORAH SONTAG and ROBERT GEBELOFF for the New York Times NOV. 22, 2014
Very cool graphics. Sad story that reminds me of just about everywhere they have tried fracking. Ingraffea’s quote from above applies well here. Fracking at this magnitude cannot be regulated.
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Also from the New York Times, forced pooling gone wild, money laundering, political intrigue, bribery and the impact on people and the environment of North Dakota.
Where Oil and Politics Mix
After an unusual land deal, a giant spill and a tanker-train explosion, anxiety began to ripple across the North Dakota prairie.
By DEBORAH SONTAG New York Times NOV. 23, 2014
Outsiders, he explained, simply need to be educated out of their fear of fracking: “There is a way to explain it that really relaxes people, that makes them understand this is not a dangerous thing that we’re doing out here, that it’s really very well managed and very safe and really the key to the future of not only North Dakota but really our entire nation.”
Like the people in Denton, some in North Dakota feel they have quite a good education in fracking and all the destruction and misery it brings.
Once again, TCEQ investigators find hazardous air pollution at such high levels they fear for their safety. This time the TCEQ didn’t evacuate like they did before. This time they donned respirators, and they still had health impacts. Welcome to our world.
The TCEQ sent investigators down to look at the facility after numerous complaints from a nearby homeowner. Several times during the three day investigation, the Mobile Response team had to put on respirators and documented instances where they both had “adverse health effects” including “moderate to severe skin irritation.”
The people in this story have been suffering for a long time with no relief from the TCEQ.
The commission said it was stepping up enforcement in both shale regions. Although its inspectors have been sickened at least twice, it does not believe airborne emissions from oil and gas drilling pose a threat to human health.
The TCEQ has only issued 6 fines in the past 2 fiscal years. That’ll teach ‘em to mess with Texas!
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From Marketplace:
The problem with fracking
by Scott Tong
Monday, November 24, 2014 – 08:31
“I’ve seen it personally firsthand,” says Ed Hirs, managing director of the Houston-based oil and gas firm Hillhouse Resources. “We’ve had wells on production since 2009, 2010 that have been plugged and abandoned here in 2014, because they are not producing enough to cover their cost.”
His firm barely profited in shale, he says. So it returned to drilling old-school conventional oil, where a good well returns $5 or even $10 for each dollar invested.
Fracking for shale oil, he says, is a fad, like that scene where the cruise ship tilts to one side.
“They all ran to the shale side of the boat,” says Hirs, who teaches economics at the University of Houston. “That was the fashion of the day. We see this in other industries as well.”
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My favorite article brings stories from Weld County Colorado.
“I had never had somebody just run over me like this. I’m an American, I have property, I have rights. And here comes corporate America saying, ‘No, we’re just going to do what we want.’ I had lived a sheltered life until that moment.” – Eric Ewing, Weld County resident
I was in Weld County in September with the FLIR camera and had the pleasure of meeting Eric Ewing. He is surrounded by all kinds of facilities, each spewing all manner of hazardous and toxic pollution that affect his family’s health.
“You can see clouds of exhaust and pollution floating around out here and you can smell it too.” – Eric Ewing, Weld County resident
This is a video of a processing plant near his home.
“When I moved here, I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s fine, drill in my backyard,’” Ewing said. “I don’t want to be one of those guys. Well, now they’ve done my backyard, my side yard, my other side yard and now my front yard, and I say, ‘Just keep it out of my house,’ and they won’t even keep it out of my house.”
This is a Noble Energy well near his home.
“I have a sore throat, headaches, hypertension, my eyes burn, difficulty sleeping, dizziness, and nausea,” Ewing said. “My daughter has a rash and open sores. It can’t be a coincidence based on the amount of oil and gas activity around here.”
I no longer report every frackquake that happens in this area. Who can keep up with them all? And unlike in the beginning when anyone suggesting a link to fracking and earthquakes was shouted down, now days it’s an accepted fact. But the M3.3 quake in Irving last night and a few responses on Twitter requires that I revisit the issue with some random facts and opinion.
We have known for 60 years that injection can induce earthquakes.
Injection is injection, folks. Fracking wastewater injection, injection for enhanced recovery and fracking itself, which is also injection, have all been linked to earthquakes. For fun, scientists used to inject fluid and try to predict the magnitude of earthquake the injection would cause. See Healy, et al., 1972.
WasteWater injection:
Wastewater injection has produced quakes of M4 and M5.
M3 to M5 quakes have been scientifically linked to wastewater injection wells in: Arkansas (M4.7), Colorado (M5.3), Ohio (M3.9), Oklahoma (M5.7), and Texas (M4.8).
Fracking injection:
Fracking intentionally cracks rock/shale.
Fracking has produced quakes of M2 and M3.
Oklahoma in 2011 – 116 quakes from M0.06 to M2.9 occurred near a well being hydraulically fractured.
British Columbia 2009 to 2011 – 38 quakes from M2.2 and M3.8 caused by fracking fluids injection into a fault.
Other induced quakes:
18 M3 > quakes in Snyder area may have been triggered by CO2 injections.
Eagle Ford Shale – 62 probable quakes, complex geography, seismic activity associated with injection and extraction.
The scary things about induced earthquakes:
The scariest things about these induced earthquakes is that this is an experiment and no one knows what will happen next.
Induced seismicity may be delayed for many years,
may not end for years after injection ends and
may occur many miles from the injection point.
The maximum possible magnitude of induced earthquakes is unknown.
Who profits and who pays?
Homes in Texas are built to withstand wind not earthquakes. Small earthquakes that would not be noticed in California, can cause expensive damage to homes in Texas and most Texans do not have earthquake coverage. The media normally reports that no “significant” or “major” damage was caused by these frackquakes. Significant and major are relative terms as the people in the frackquake zones have learned. Families who have foundation damage, cracks in ceiling and walls, or doors and windows that no longer close, find the repairs are expensive and often out of reach. They are stuck with a big mortgage for a damaged home.
The industry’s response is the same whether your water is fouled, you air polluted or your home has structural damage: “You can’t prove we did it.”
For most Texans property ownership is how we achieve the American Dream:
work hard
invest in property
sell that property for a profit
invest in more property
eventually retire to smaller property and augment retirement with profits from property investments.
That’s why private property rights are a huge issue in Texas. What we have learned about fracking during this “boom” is how our private property value and our enjoyment of our property can be damaged by fracking:
trespass of smelly, hazardous and toxic air pollutants onto our property that diminish our ability to enjoy our property and can cause health impacts,
trespass of fracking chemicals into our water diminishing the quality and sometimes poisoning it beyond use,
trespass of bright lights and noise that make it difficult or impossible to sleep,
danger in our neighborhoods, damage to our roads and trespass of dust from truck traffic and
structural damage to homes from frackquakes
Americans who find themselves in fracking zones simply because of where they live geographically are being sacrificed for the supposed good of the collective whole. But there are now an estimated 15 million Americans who live near fracking.
Note: The facts in this blog post are rock solid. If you want to explore further there are good resources such as the impeccably sourced paper, “Fracking Industrialization and Induced Earthquakes” and Earthworks report on frackquakes, On Shaky Ground.
Update: there was a M2.5 frackquake this afternoon in the same area. Event Page
Update 2: there was a M2.3 frackquake very early this morning. Event Page
Texas Representative Phil King was elected promising to fight big government and protect local control.
“We should always trust people over big government. Local control and limited government must be the first resort, not the last.” — philking.com/about
He is well on his way to breaking his promise, and becoming the biggest hypocrite in Texas in the process.
Because, now that Denton’s voters have banned fracking by ballot initiative, Rep. King wants to prevent other cities from doing the same, and maybe overturn Denton’s ban in the process.
Denton’s ban vote was a landslide. The people who know fracking best – there are over 270 fracked wells in Denton, some only 200 feet from homes – said no.
And the voters who did so were majority Republican, and elected Republicans in the same election. Before Denton’s ban, King was for small government. Now he says citizens shouldn’t be able to decide how, when, where, or even if fracking happens in their cities.
On October 18, 2014, Cathy McMullen and I took air samples at the EnerVest drill site on Masch Branch and Hampton in Denton, Texas. Wind direction was ENE at 4.5 mph.
The downwind sample detected 18 toxic and hazardous gases and methane. Benzene was detected over the TCEQ’s Air Comparison Monitoring Value for long-term exposure.
The TCEQ will dismiss this air test saying it is a one-time exposure so health effects cannot be expected. But we have FLIR videos that show these kinds of emissions are occurring over the long-term in Denton. We also have numerous air samples where benzene and other hazardous gases were detected over TCEQ limits. Most of this air testing was done by citizens or at their expense. Neither the city nor the state have implemented any kind of air monitoring program. This testing shows a pattern of long-term exposure for the citizens of Denton that is consistent with findings in other areas.
Scientific studies from research groups are finding much larger volumes of toxic air pollutants near oil & gas operations than state and federal regulators estimate, and people living near these operations are having health impacts.
What researchers are finding is that the levels of chemicals such as benzene and toluene, which may pose health risks, can be higher around oil and gas sites than in big cities.
If you live in the gas patch or care about climate, please read the entire article. Here are a few things that jumped out at me.
A University of Colorado study measured levels of benzene, a known carcinogen, over the Front Range oil fields seven times higher than state estimates.
A study in Utah’s Uintah Basin, also by CU scientists, found benzene levels above a long-term exposure health standard in three-quarters of the 329 air measurements made.
“We are looking at emissions that are significantly larger — perhaps 50 percent larger,” than state estimates, said NOAA’s Tans.
Bottom up (measurements taken on the ground) can pinpoint the source of the leaks but scientists who do top down (measurements taken from the air above facilities) say bottom up studies consistently underestimate emissions.
The EnerVest rig foreman explained to a news reporter and me that the gas buster removes gas from fluids and mud that have been used downhole while drilling in the formation. EnerVest was allowing this gas to vent from the gas buster into the air, but routing the gas through a flare is a safer method.
We won! In a landslide vote, a solidly Republican city that tried for years to find a way to live with fracking voted to ban it because they have learned that fracking is not compatible with a healthy city. And it’s common sense that healthy neighborhoods and a healthy city make a healthy economy. Now […]
People in Denton tried for years to find a way they could live with fracking. We tried to negotiate with industry for reasonable rules that would keep their fracking pollution from trespassing onto our property and into our children’s bedrooms. We got no help from the local or state government or from the state regulatory […]
To all the media who thought the sketchy press release from the oil and gas industry and an anecdotal rumor from one student was news, here is your assignment —–> The industry’s typical plan of attack–bullying, scare mongering and burying the city with misinformation–backfired, so they are looking for some way to explain away the […]
The vote to ban fracking in the city limits of Denton was a landslide. Do not forget that the people of Denton have been struggling for five years to achieve some level of “responsible” from the oil and gas industry. This did not happen because of one bad operator. That suggestion is complete and utter […]
This is a presentation given in Mansfield, TX by Anne C. Epstein MD, FACP Lubbock TX Board of Health. This presentation clearly shows that fracking is a serious threat to health and should never be in neighborhoods. Health Risks of Oil and Gas- Development
This is a sign from a frack site 200′ from a family’s backdoor. Thirty-percent of Denton city limits is permitted to allow fracking 200′ or less from homes. Vote FOR the proposition to prohibit hydraulic fracturing in the city limits of Denton.
