Watch this news report about the people’s frack quake meeting last night in Azle and be horrified by, not only the earthquake damage but, the fracking sinkholes!
The sinkhole in the news story is very near Tracey’s home. And, she has a picture showing a huge crack that runs through her floor that seems to be where her home is cracking in two.
There is a woman in Reno who also has sinkholes and a great deal of home damage.
Notice that Steve Everley, who serves as a Joe Camel for the fracking industry, thinks the injection should continue until the Railroad Commission figures out IF the earthquakes are connected to the injection. As we know from experience with that agency, it could take quite a very long while for that to happen. In the meantime, residents in the frack quake zone would continue to be like this little fella. –>
KERA has a new map of the recent frack quake swarm that shows the epicenters of the M3.0 and larger earthquaks are mostly in Reno, Texas and only a mile from one injection well and about 2 miles from another.
While the link between injection wells and quakes is accepted science, it seems to be something state regulators and many politicians do no like to talk about. Recently, however, the Texas Railroad Commission, the state agency that regulates the oil and gas industry, has announced that is will hire a seismologist and begin looking into the upsurge in Texas quakes.
The KERA article shows the importance of notifying the USGS whenever there is a quake and filling out the “did you feel it” portion on their website.
UPDATE: Here is my presentation from last night.
Shake the Ground People's Fracking Earthquake Presentation
Another update: Data from the new seismic sensors in the Reno/Azle area is available online.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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I wonder what all the shaking does to the casings of existing production wells. If its damaging homes its damaging the cement casings. Its obvious from the sinkholes that the ground is moving and when the casing separate it creates a pathway for fluid and gas migration.
That question keeps coming up. I wonder if there could be something to it? You know, in Texas we put a whole .75″ of cement in the upper part and a whole .5″ in the lower part. Shit, man, that’s prolly gonna do it. Right?
It was during the Guy earthquake swarms that I shot this video. Its roughly 4-5 miles from the swarm area.
http://youtu.be/nuj1bwxEerY
Its sounds EXACTLY like the well in Australia in Gasland II. The industry was really scrambling to figure this one out and best info we could get indicated it was from a production gas well over a mile or so away. The state regulators did absolutely NOTHING as far as investigation. They just told the companies to fix it.
The gas company eventually bought this property, cemented this in and setup a flare on another water well in the back of the house. Nothing else was ever said by regulators once the flare burned down.
Last I heard stray gas could still be seen coming from the hole but decreased from what it was when I saw it.
We’ll never know the true answer of what happened here because of the non disclosure agreements.
I remember that! So bizarre!
Study released in 2012 by Canadian regulators that proved 272 earthquakes in NE British Columbia between 2009 and 2011 (frac’ing started there in 2009) were directly caused by hydraulic fracturing and resulted in damage to wellbores.
“A search of the areas in the National Earthquake Database from 1985 to present shows no detected seismicity in the Horn River Basin prior to 2009.”
…
“Two instances of wellbore deformation along horizontal sections were reported by one operator. These occurred over a short interval beginning at 3,011 m KB (Kelly Bushing) in the d-A1-D/94-O-9 well. In this instance, casing deformation was minor and did not hinder completion operations. At d-1-D/94-O-9, the deformation was encountered at 4,245 m KB and the casing distortion blocked completion efforts at 4,288 m KB.”
“Conclusion
Horn River Basin seismicity events, from 2009 to late 2011, were caused by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing. All events occurred during or between hydraulic fracturing stage operations.”
http://www.ernstversusencana.ca/investigation-of-observed-seismicity-in-the-horn-river-basin
This is the second time FOX4 did evermore coverage than expected on this subject. Surprise surprise surprise!
It was a good story and they want to go with the bus to Austin. No one likes earthquakes and sinkholes.
It was so great to finally meet you last night, Sharon! Thank you to you and the other panelists for coming.
It was nice to meet you too. Keep sending me stuff and showing up.
So glad to see active community involvement for a change. Earthquakes and sinkholes definitely have a way of waking people up. I hope the citizens of Azle will continue to
demand accountability from our State regulators.
What Robert Finne said is one of the first things I thought of. Let’s pretend (and I do mean pretend) for a moment that injection wells are not in any way linked to the earthquakes-regardless of cause, any cement casings are at much higher risk for failure at the very least, and quite possibly speeding up the cracking, splitting and failing already occurring.
Remember, Ramona Nye stated that the TRRC is inspecting injection wells to see if their permit is up to speed on reports of earthquakes. TRRC is most certainly not inspecting existing well sites in the same area