|
| Author
|
Post |
 
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:08 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
CREDIT: AP/Rick Callahan
A BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana leaked an unknown amount of oil into Lake Michigan Monday afternoon, an incident that occurred less than two weeks after the U.S. lifted BP’s ban on seeking new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP says the spill, which has since been stopped and contained, was caused by a “disruption in the refining process” at its Whiting refinery in northwest Indiana. Dan Goldblatt, spokesman at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, told ThinkProgress that his office was notified at about 4:30 CDT Monday of an oil sheen, which EPA officials said on a press call Thursday totaled about 5,000 square yards, on Lake Michigan. Mike Beslow, On-Scene Coordinator for the EPA, said that when he visited the site around 9 p.m. Monday, the sheen was no longer visible. Neither Goldblatt nor EPA officials had information on how much oil had spilled, but CBS, citing unnamed sources, reports that between 10 and 12 barrels — around 500 gallons — spilled into the lake.
Lake Michigan acts as the drinking water source for 7 million people in the Chigago area alone, but EPA officials said on the call that the drinking water wouldn’t be affected by the spill. The EPA, BP and the Coast Guard are leading the cleanup effort, which involves placing booms on the water, scooping up oil, which has been turned hard and waxy by cold weather, with their hands, and cleaning up a nearby beach that was contaminated. BP told Reuters that they have had “no reports of any wildlife impacted,” and EPA officials confirmed this on the call.
The presence of a sheen on a body of water is typically viewed as a violation of the Clean Water Act, and EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman said during the call that officials would look into whether action should be taken against BP.
“I can assure you that EPA’s lawyers will be looking at this matter and determining whether or not enforcement action will be appropriate,” she said.
The Whiting refinery, which was recently upgraded to process oil from the Canadian tar sands, has drawn the ire of environmentalists in the past, due to its pollution of Lake Michigan. Last September, Indiana regulators ruled that BP must cut the amount of mercury pollution it releases annually into Lake Michigan from the refinery from 23.1 parts per trillion of to 8.75 parts per trillion. The new rule marks a “modest but significant” change, according to the NRDC, but is still above the federal mercury limit of 1.3 parts per trillion.
The Whiting refinery was also at the center of a November lawsuit by Chicago residents, who sued BP, Koch Industries, and other companies over the storage of vast piles of petroleum coke, a byproduct left over from the refining of tar sands oil. The Whiting refinery currently produces about 600,000 tons per year of petcoke, but the recent $3.8 billion expansion has the potential to up its petcoke production to 2.2 million tons per year.
Spokespersons at BP did not immediately respond to ThinkProgress’ request for comment. The spill comes on the heels of a barge collision that spilled up to 170,000 gallons of oil into into Galveston Bay Saturday, and just over a week after a spill of 20,000 gallons of oil was reported in an Ohio nature reserve. |
|
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:10 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
The Rachel Maddox Show on MSNBC showed Sheriff deputies refusing to allow boaters to continue towards the Duke site
Duke Energy Caught Intentionally Dumping 61 Million Gallons Of Coal Waste Into North Carolina Water
By Emily Atkin on March 21, 2014 at 10:21 am
Photographs show Duke personnel using a portable water pump to empty its 1978 coal ash pond. The plant's Clean Water Act permit only authorizes discharges when the pond level overtops the vertical discharge pipe visible in the photo, in order to reduce discharges of toxic solids in the effluent.
CREDIT: waterkeeper.org
North Carolina regulators on Thursday cited Duke Energy for illegally and deliberately dumping 61 million gallons of toxic coal ash waste into a tributary of the Cape Fear River, which provides drinking water for several cities and towns in the state.
The incident marks the eighth time in less than a month that the company has been accused of violating environmental regulations. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said Duke — notorious for the February Dan River disaster which saw 82,000 tons of coal ash released into state waters — was taking bright blue wastewater from two of its coal ash impoundments and running it through hoses into a nearby canal and drain pipe.
Duke is reportedly permitted to discharge treated wastewater from the ash ponds into the canal, but only if they are filtered through so-called “risers,” pipes that allow heavier residue in the water to settle out. DENR told ABC News on Thursday that Duke’s pumping bypassed the risers.
“We’re concerned with the volume of water that was pumped and the manner it was pumped,” DENR Communications Director Drew Elliot told ABC. “It did not go through the treatment facility as it should have.”
Duke’s most recent incident was discovered after the environmental group Waterkeeper Alliance last week released aerial surveillance photos taken from a fixed-wing aircraft that showed Duke workers pumping wastewater from the two toxic coal ash lagoons into a canal.
Waterkeeper Alliance tried to go to the source of the pollution via boat but were warned off by plant employees and a policeman, so they resorted to aerial surveillance, as seen in this clip from the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.
The toxic water that Duke allegedly dumped is a byproduct of coal ash, a waste product from coal-fired power plants. Coal plants generate millions of tons of waste every year, and that waste is contaminated with toxic metals including lead, mercury, arsenic, chromium, and selenium. More than two-thirds of that waste — called coal ash — is dumped into landfills, storage ponds, or old mines.
The news is just the latest in a string of environmental violations surrounding Duke in the last few months. But Duke is not the only North Carolina entity that has been engaging in questionable conduct. DENR itself has earned a good deal of mistrust from environmentalists in no small part due to its questionable handling Duke’s many serious environmental violations. The U.S. Justice Department has recently opened a criminal investigation into DENR due to its handing of the February Dan River spill, questioning the relationship between the agency and Duke — a company that also was a 28-year employer of Gov. Pat McCrory.
In addition, emails obtained by the Associated Press last week suggested staff at DENR were coordinating with Duke Energy officials before intervening in a suit by citizen groups against the company.
The state has also been in the spotlight in past years for its climate change denial, most notably marked by a law passed in 2012 to stop the use of climate-related science to plan for future events. Specifically, that law forces coastal counties to ignore observations and the best science-based projections in planning for future sea level rise. |
|
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:14 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
Ohio Pipeline Spill Twice As Large As Original Estimate
By Kiley Kroh on March 25, 2014 at 2:16 pm
"Ohio Pipeline Spill Twice As Large As Original Estimate"
CREDIT: Ohio Environmental Protection Agency
20,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a damaged pipeline into a nature reserve in southwest Ohio — double the initial estimates — according to officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The leak was discovered by Gary Broughton as he was driving on March 17 and smelled a “fuel, oily smell,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.
“It’s absolutely terrible,” Broughton told the 911 dispatcher. “It made me sick when I saw it.”
The crude oil leached into the 374-acre Glen Oak Nature Preserve, 20 miles north of Cincinnati. Wildlife officials said thus far small animals have been impacted by the spill but thanks to the cold weather, fewer large animals are moving through the contaminated area.
The spill came from a five inch crack in the Mid-Valley Pipeline, running 1,000 miles from Texas to Michigan. On Monday, the pipeline operator, Sunoco Logistics, said the pipeline had been repaired and reopened. A company spokesman told the Associated Press that the cause of the spill is still under investigation.
Cleanup is likely to be time-consuming and expensive, as crews have had to build a road to get heavy machinery into the area and build a containment structure to attempt to keep spilled crude oil out of the nearby Great Miami River.
Far from an isolated incident, the massive leak is “at least the third time in the last decade that oil has leaked in the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky region from this pipe” and “is the 40th incident since 2006 along the pipeline, which stretches 1,100 miles from Texas to Michigan,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, citing data from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA).
How long the pipeline had been leaking is unknown. Residents near the affected area told the Cincinnati Enquirer that they had been smelling petroleum for days before Broughton got out of his car and discovered the spill. The story is reminiscent of last year’s major pipeline spill in North Dakota — the worst onshore oil spill in U.S. history — discovered not by the pipeline operator or responsible company, but a farmer harvesting his wheat.
In order to accommodate the oil and gas boom sweeping the U.S., an expansive network of pipelines is being re-purposed, reversed, and constructed at a rate that alarms industry observers. Individual companies are left largely in charge of pipeline routes and safety monitoring and regulators like the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration say they don’t have the tools they need to enforce stricter standards. According to an analysis of PHMSA data, since 1986 there have been nearly 8,000 significant pipeline incidents, resulting in more than 500 deaths, more than 2,300 injuries, and nearly $7 billion in damage.
Tags: Ohio
Oil Spill
Pipeline |
|
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:21 pm |
|
|
twotap
F L I N T O I D
|
Initial assessments show the environmental impact from the oil spill, discovered Monday at the BP Whiting Refinery, appears to be "minimal," said Dan Goldblatt, spokesperson for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Sorry whackos its not poisoning the water.  |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:30 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
| There are conflicting reports as to the extent of the spill. Authorities are monitoring to get too the truth. |
|
|
|
Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:28 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
Whiting News
Malfunction at BP Whiting Refinery sends oil into Lake Michigan
March 25, 2014 6:56 pm • Lauri Harvey Keagle and Joseph S. Pete Times Staff Writers
WHITING | Hazmat-suited crews worked Tuesday to clean up an oil spill that spread across 5,000 square feet of Lake Michigan after a Monday afternoon discharge from the BP Whiting Refinery.
Tarballs, or blobs of semi-solid oil, washed up along stretches of sandy and rocky shoreline that is owned by BP and inaccessible to the public. Coast Guard personnel drove back and forth along the southeast side of the refinery to haze the seagulls and keep them from landing in the oil-tainted beach.
The discharge of crude oil was discovered at 4:30 p.m. Monday, BP spokesman Scott Dean said. The spill has been contained and is being cleaned up, while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reviews whether to fine the oil company or take any other enforcement action.
"We did have a processing disruption last night at the Whiting Refinery," Dean said via phone from the scene Tuesday morning. "We immediately activated the response team."
The spill presented no threat to human health or wildlife, said Mike Beslow, on-scene coordinator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. There were no reported injuries.
Dean said the discharge took place in "a little cove between the water treatment plant and the (ArcelorMittal Indiana Harbor) steel mill."
"Some oil found its way into the cooling water system," Dean said.
The oily water then was discharged into the cove leading to the lake, he said. The discharge did not last long.
Beslow said the refinery was no longer discharging oil when he arrived about 9 p.m. Monday. BP officials informed him crude oil, which had not yet gone through the first stage of processing, had gotten into the No. 6 separator, which uses water from Lake Michigan to cool equipment. That water is supposed to go from a holding pond back into the lake, and was contaminated with crude oil before it was discharged through an outflow pipe, Beslow said. The equipment has a detection mechanism that immediately alerted refinery workers to the discharge.
BP said in a statement that there had been no further discharge of oil.
"Based on preliminary information, BP believes an upset at a crude distillation unit may have sent crude oil into the refinery's cooling water outfall and then into the lake. BP's investigation of the incident continues and the refinery has taken steps to prevent another discharge," the company said in a statement. "Meanwhile, response efforts continue. Lines of boom have been deployed to contain the oil and wind has blown oil toward the shore, where crews are vacuuming it out of the water and cleaning the limited quantities that have reached land between the refinery's wastewater treatment plant and a nearby steel mill."
The company had not yet determined how much oil was discharged but expected to be able to provide an estimate as soon as Wednesday.
Preliminary reports suggest as many as 10 to 12 barrels were discharged. A U.S. Coast Guard unit found an area of about 5,000 square feet covered in crude oil.
BP deployed about 2,000 feet of boom and six vacuum trucks, and contained the spill to an area between the refinery and the Indiana Harbor steel mill. A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter and a BP plane flew over the lake, and observed no sheen outside of the boomed-off cove.
Some of the crude oil washed up on sandy and rocky beaches at the refinery, which is fenced off. Coast Guard responders found an average of 20 tarballs, each less than 1 centimeter in diameter, per 10 feet of shoreline. The contaminated area stretched for about 2,700 feet, or about half a mile, along the shore, Beslow said.
As of Tuesday, cleanup crews recovered 5,200 gallons of an oil-water mixture, which was mostly water, said federal on-scene coordinator Jeremy Thomas, who is a U.S. Coast Guard Marine science technician first class. They also recovered 10 square yards of oily debris, and oily booms and absorbent pads, he said.
"We're working to minimize any impact to the environment," he said. "Conditions have been extremely helpful because the winds and waves have been pushing the oil to a natural collection point."
Cleanup and containment efforts, which are under the supervision of the EPA and Coast Guard, were ongoing overnight and are expected to continue for at least another day or two.
Dan Goldblatt, spokesman for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, said crews at the scene about 2 a.m. Tuesday reported "a large sheen on the lake."
Sheens on natural waterways are considered violations of the federal Clean Water Act. Dean said the sheen was no longer visible about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday.
Lake Michigan is a source of drinking water to millions of people throughout the Chicago area, but the spill took place nowhere near any water utility intake pipes, said Charles Pietrucha, superintendent of the Hammond Water Works filtration plant. The Hammond utility, which provides water to 300,000 people throughout Northwest Indiana and Chicago's southeast suburbs, is monitoring water quality extra closely after the spill, though it was never close to contaminating the supply of drinking water.
Hammond's two intake pipes are both a few miles northeast of the spill, and also are located at least 20 feet under the surface.
"It was never a threat, but we will monitor somewhat more closely," Pietrucha said. "Due to where the intakes are and the wind direction, it was never even a threat."
The oil did not pose any hazard to nearby Whihala Beach because it was small and contained before it got anywhere close, Lake County Parks CEO Bob Nickovich said.
"My understanding is the company was very quick to respond, and it is pretty well contained," he said.
Nicole Barker, executive director of Save the Dunes, said the spill has the Michigan City-based environmental group concerned about the impact of the spill on the environment, drinking water, recreational, fishing and shipping industries.
"This BP spill, while seemingly contained and currently under control exemplifies some of the concerns Save the Dunes has with transporting and refining oil near Lake Michigan," Barker said.
"We are glad to see that the crews effectively responded to the spill and it is fortunate that winds were blowing in a way that pushed the oil toward the shoreline," Barker said. "However, irreversible damage can be caused by spills into our waterways and it is our greatest hope that the oil was contained before causing great harm to the Lake Michigan ecosystem."
Production was never disrupted at the 413,000-barrel-per-day refinery, Dean said. |
|
|
|
Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:06 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
Friday, Mar 28, 2014 03:11 PM EDT
BP: Lake Michigan oil spill was actually twice as big as we originally said
Whoops
Lindsay Abrams Follow
(Credit: EPA)
For a company that just received permission to start pursuing new oil in the still-suffering Gulf of Mexico, BP isn’t doing the best job of convincing us it’s ready to be back playing with the big kids.
Monday afternoon, the company’s Whiting refinery in Indiana spilled what a BP incident management team identified as nine to 18 barrels of oil into Lake Michigan. Thursday, it revised that estimate, more than doubling the estimate to somewhere between 15 and 39 barrels. At a maximum of 1,638 gallons, that’s small beans compared to its worst disaster, but it’s still some Oreo.
The earlier estimate, according to the company, was based on the sheen on the lake’s surface; the updated figure was based on oil collected during the clean-up effort.
Before the revised estimate was announced, Chicago senators Mark Kirk, a Republican, and Dick Durbin, a Democrat, requested a meeting with the company to discuss what’s going on at its refinery, Reuters reports:
The Senators asked for details on the spill’s cause, an analysis of the impact of the 405,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Whiting refinery’s production increase, and information on what is being done to prevent future spills.
“Given the Whiting refinery’s recent expansion of its operations to double the amount of heavy oil sands being processed, this spill raises questions about the long-term safety and reliability of BP’s new, expanded production,” the senators wrote to John Minge, chief executive officer, BP America Inc.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is also demanding answers: “I expect a full accounting to the public,” he said Wednesday. “I want a report on what happened, how it happened, why did it happen, how much happened and how do you prevent it from ever happening again.”
Lake Michigan is a source of drinking water for millions of Chicagoans. The water quality isn’t believed to have been affected.
Lindsay Abrams
Lindsay Abrams is an assistant editor at Salon, focusing on all things sustainable. Follow her on Twitter @readingirl, email labrams@salon.com. |
|
|
|
Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:38 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
House Democrats Call On EPA To Investigate Fracking’s Link To Water Contamination In Three States
By Katie Valentine on April 3, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Fracking opponents protest before the Tom Corbett inauguration to become the 46th governor of Pennsylvania at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011.
CREDIT: AP Photo/Matt Rourke
House Democrats are calling on the EPA to reopen an investigation into whether fracking operations contaminated water in Wyoming, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Eight members of Congress sent a letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Tuesday, asking her to reopen investigations into water contamination in the three states. The EPA investigations in Pavillion, WY, Dimock, PA and Parker County, TX were all called off between mid-2012 and mid-2013, before the agency determined for sure what had caused each region’s contamination.
“The EPA was established to hold states accountable and guarantee baseline protection for the American public and shared environment, and these families deserve that protection,” the letter reads. “Members of these communities currently do not have safe, clean drinking water and need EPA’s help to address the ongoing water contamination issues in their homes.”
In 2012, the EPA closed an investigation into contamination in Dimock, PA — a town that was featured in the documentary Gasland — after it determined that contamination levels were below the federal safety standards, but in 2013 a leaked document from the agency reported that fracking had caused “significant damage” to drinking water aquifers in Dimock. The report concluded that the damage to aquifers can sometimes be repaired in less than a year, but sometimes the aquifers take more than three years to recover.
Also in 2012, the EPA dropped its claim that Range Resources Corp. had contaminated drinking water in Parker County, TX — but over a year later, the EPA Inspector General published a report saying the agency had been right to investigate possible causes of water contamination in Parker County.
And this June, the Pavillion, WY investigation was turned over to the state of Wyoming, a pass-off that meant the investigation will furthermore be funded by EnCana, the drilling company whose natural gas wells may have been the ones responsible for the contamination. The EPA decided to hand off the study after it published test results in 2011 that found an aquifer in Pavillion tested positive for high levels of carcinogenic compounds and at least one chemical used in fracking.
“We’re seeing a pattern that is of great concern,” Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the NRDC told ProPublica last year. “They need to make sure that scientific investigations are thorough enough to ensure that the public is getting a full scientific explanation.”
Though the EPA has dropped these investigations into fracking and water contamination, other studies have linked fracking with water contamination and other environmental and health effects. In January, an AP investigation found that fracking operations were contaminating well water in two states. In 2013, an Environment America report found that fracking wells in the U.S. generated 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater in 2012, and that in New Mexico alone, chemicals from oil and gas pits have contaminated water sources at least 421 times. And in Pennsylvania, fracking may be linked to the skin rashes, infections, headaches and dizziness that residents have complained of suffering.
Tags: EPA
Fracking
Pollution
Water
Close
Like Climate Progress on Facebook |
|
|
|
Fri Apr 04, 2014 6:16 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
BRAVO, FRANCE! In a huge blow to fracking, France's highest court has just upheld the country's ban on fracking, defeating a legal challenge from an American company. http://ow.ly/pJk5h
Schuepbach Energy, a US-based company, tried to overturn the French Parliament's decision to ban fracking, but the high court's ruling ensures that fracking will have no place in France. The stunning defeat is th...
New York Times
International Business
France Upholds Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: October 11, 2013
PARIS — France’s highest court on Friday upheld a government ban on a controversial drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, in a defeat for a method that has revolutionized the oil and natural gas industry in the United States.
Related
As Drilling Practice Takes Off in U.S., Europe Proves Hesitant (October 10, 2013)
Europe Votes to Tighten Rules on Drilling Method (October 10, 2013)
The Constitutional Council ruled against a challenge by Schuepbach Energy, an American company, whose exploration permits were revoked after the French Parliament banned the practice.
The method, known informally as fracking, pumps water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into shale formations deep underground to liberate trapped oil and natural gas deposits. The success of the technique over the last decade has led the United States to now claim to be 87 percent self-sufficient in gas.
Environmental concerns, particularly worries about the danger to water supplies, have slowed adoption of the practice in Europe, and the center-right government of former President Nicolas Sarkozy passed a law prohibiting it in 2011.
Schuepbach Energy had claimed that the law violated its rights, unfairly singled out fracking and was unconstitutional. The court rejected those arguments.
The ruling was a victory for President François Hollande, who has tread a careful path on fracking, partly because he wants to maintain the support of the Greens party going into elections next year.
“This law has been contested several times,” Mr. Hollande said on Friday in a speech after the decision. “It is now beyond dispute.”
Mr. Hollande held out a small hope for the industry, however, noting that the law “only prohibits recovering shale gas by hydraulic fracturing, it does not prevent research on other techniques.”
In addition to France, Bulgaria has banned fracking. Britain has allowed modest experiments, though those have met with public discontent. Industry hopes that Germany, which decided to end its atomic power after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan, would be receptive to fracking have also met with disappointment.
On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted to tighten the rules on fracking, giving initial approval to a measure to require in-depth environmental impact studies on all such projects.
Attempts to reach Schuepbach Energy, a company based in Dallas that is not listed on any stock exchange, were unsuccessful. A company Web site says it is “under construction.” An e-mail message to the company did not receive an immediate response.
Jean-Louis Schilansky, president of the Union Française des Industries Pétrolières, a French oil and natural gas industry lobby, said there was no point in continuing the fight on legal grounds.
“The moment the highest court says it’s constitutional,” he said, “it’s constitutional.”
Mr. Schilansky noted that while the 2011 law was often represented as a simple ban on fracking, it also called for the creation of a national commission to determine whether fracking could be carried out in an environmentally safe manner.
“At the moment the whole of the knowledge is being taken from the United States,” he said. “Instead of that, we should be developing our own.”
The industry will now focus on getting the government to move forward with those experiments, he said, though he added, “Frankly, it’s very unlikely they’ll do anything before the next election.”
France is thought to have two major deposits of “unconventional” hydrocarbons: major oil deposits in the Paris basin and gas deposits in the southeastern part of the country.
The United States Energy Information Agency estimates that there are 137 trillion cubic feet of “technically recoverable” gas in France, equivalent to decades worth of national consumption. Without significant exploration effort, though, those numbers are just guesswork, Mr. Schilansky said.
“Until we go there,” he said, “we really don’t know.”
A version of this article appears in print on October 12, 2013, on page B2 of the New York edition with the headline: French Court Upholds Ban on Hydraulic Fracturing.
. |
|
|
|
Mon Apr 07, 2014 3:12 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
| Oklahoma fracking leads to earthquakes |
|
|
|
Wed May 07, 2014 6:15 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
news about USGS Oklahoma Earthquakes Fracking
bing.com/news
USGS Oklahoma earthquakes fracking: Ok. at risk for 'damaging quake,' study says
Examiner · 13 hours ago
It is has long been known that human activity has an impact on the ground, but few as dramatic as an earthquake. An alaming USGS Oklahoma earthquakes fracking…
.
USGS Oklahoma Earthquakes: Fracking Likely Behind Increased Chances of Damaging Quake
The Epoch Times · 9 hours ago
USGS: Okla. At Increased Risk Of 'Damaging Quake'
NPR News · 1 day ago
See also: More stories · Top stories
.
USGS Oklahoma Earthquakes: Fracking Likely Behind ...
www.theepochtimes.com/n3/661281-usgs-oklahoma-earthquakes-fracking...
May 06, 2014 · OKLAHOMA CITY—The rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50 percent since October 2013, significantly increasing the chance …
.
Earthquake 'warning' issued in Oklahoma
www.usatoday.com/.../oklahoma-earthquake-warning-usgs-fracking/8733665
May 06, 2014 · OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — The United States Geological Survey says the rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50% since October …
.
USGS: Okla. Fracking Has Increased Chance Of 'Damaging ...
www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/05/05/309888859/usgs-okla...
May 05, 2014 · The U.S. Geological Survey says the number of earthquakes in Oklahoma has gone up dramatically in recent months and that the surge in seismic …
.
Oklahoma Earthquake Rate Breaking Records, and Fracking ...
Common Dreams
18 hours ago
May 06, 2014 · Image: USGS Fracking-related injection wells are likely behind the "remarkable" increase in earthquakes in Oklahoma, scientists with the U.S. …
.
USGS Report: Link Between Fracking And Oklahoma ...
crooksandliars.com › Politics
It is odd, isn't it? All of a sudden, areas that rarely experience earthquakes are seeing an increase (like Saturday's 5.6 in Oklahoma - a total of 10 earthquakes in ...
.
USGS issues 'damaging earthquake' advisory for Oklahoma ...
www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/06/1297322/-USGS-issues-damaging...
May 06, 2014 · In a joint release, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Geological Survey are warning advising that the increase of earthquakes above 3.0 …
.
Oklahoma Earthquake Risk Prompts Rare Warning
www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/05/oklahoma-earthquake-risk_n...
May 05, 2014 · This story originally appeared on LiveScience. Mile for mile, there are almost as many earthquakes rattling Oklahoma as California this year. This major ...
.
Government Blames 'Injection Wells' for Oklahoma's ...
Mashable
14 hours ago
May 06, 2014 · The government issued a rare earthquake warning in Oklahoma, saying the risk of a damaging quake has increased, partly due to oil and gas drilling.
.
Related searches for USGS Oklahoma earthquakes fracking
Usgs Fracking Study
USGS Fracking Report
Fracking and Earthquake
Hydraulic Fracking Earthquakes
Earthquakes Due to Fracking
Fracking in Oklahoma 2013
Oklahoma Fracking Map
Fracking in OK |
|
|
|
Wed May 07, 2014 6:41 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
THINK PROGRESS
First Nation Will Evict Mining Company After Massive Spill Contaminated Area Water
by Kiley Kroh Posted on August 14, 2014 at 11:18 am
"First Nation Will Evict Mining Company After Massive Spill Contaminated Area Water"
Mount Polley Mine tailings pond breach
CREDIT: Cariboo Regional District/screenshot
Earlier this month, hundreds of Canadians were unable to use their water after 1.3 billion gallons of slurry from an open pit mine in British Columbia spilled into nearby lakes, rivers and creeks. Now, a B.C. First Nation plans to evict the company, Imperial Metals Corp., over another project on their territory, CBC News reported.
Neskonlith Chief Judy Wilson said she intended to hand-deliver the notice to Imperial Metals on Thursday, directing the company to steer clear of the site of its proposed Ruddock Creek zinc and lead mine. If the mine is approved, it would be located at the headwaters of an important sockeye salmon run.
“We do not want the mine developing or operating in that sacred headwaters,” Wilson told the CBC. “Our elders have stated very clearly that they do not want anything poisoning our water or our salmon.”
While the Neskonlith were opposed to the mine long before the recent spill, Wilson said the incident shows that the mining industry cannot ensure the environment will be protected from their operations. “The industry has proven at Mount Polley that they can’t regulate all of that,” she said.
While water quality tests have deemed the water safe for use and local officials have said the Mount Polley spill won’t damage fish populations in the area, experts say the incident — which resulted in the declaration of a local state of emergency — could still be reason for concern. Megan Thompson, an aquatic ecologist and limnologist at a Canadian environmental consulting firm, told ThinkProgress’ Katie Valentine that there are “many things in the tailings that could impact lakes and rivers, especially if those substances did not naturally occur in the aquatic systems prior to the spill.”
Tailings ponds are used to store a mix of water, chemicals and ground-up minerals left over from mining operations. After the dam failed at Mount Polley, sending 2,000 Olympic swimming pools of waste into the water supply, the focus has been on plugging the dam before rains come to the area and assessing the damage. With 20 other operating mines with similar tailings ponds, the incident served as a wake-up call for officials, Mines Minister Bill Bennett told the Vancouver Sun.
“I am losing sleep over this,” Bennett said. “This gives us about the best reason a person could have to really take a step back. Every Canadian has to be concerned about this.”
The Mount Polley spill also intensified the opposition of First Nations to other mining projects on their land. The Red Chris gold and copper mine in northwest B.C., another Imperial Metals project, has been a divisive issue in the Tahltan First Nation for several years. The mine is located in an unspoiled wilderness near the ‘Sacred Headwaters,’ where three major rivers originate. The Kablona Keepers, a group of Tahltan First Nation members, announced their plan to blockade the mine last week.
“How many years did we fight Imperial and we let them go?” Rhoda Quack, head of the Klabona Keepers, asked the group. “When we talked to them they told us the tailings pond is the same design as Mount Polley and that it works fine. Look at it now. We can’t have that happen here,” she said.
By clicking and submitting a comment I acknowledge the ThinkProgress Privacy Policy and agree to the ThinkProgress Terms of Use. I understand that my comments are also being governed by Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, or Hotmail’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policies as applicable, which can be found here. |
|
|
|
Thu Aug 14, 2014 1:37 pm |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
"Study Links Water Contamination To Fracking Operations In Texas And Pennsylvania"
Faulty casing and cementing in gas wells has contaminated drinking water in Texas and Pennsylvania, according to a new study.
The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences but has not yet been made public, looked at cases of water contamination in drinking water wells in the two states and found that it was these casing and cementing failures — not the actual process of fracking — that are to blame for the contamination. Fracking involves drilling a deep well into the earth, then inserting a steel casing tube into the well and pumping cement into the well to seal the casing in place and, in theory, protect groundwater from the gas that travels through the tube to the surface. If that casing or cementing isn’t done correctly, however, it can lead to contamination, the study found.
“This is relatively good news because it means that most of the issues we have identified can potentially be avoided by future improvements in well integrity,” lead author Thomas Darrah from Ohio State University told the Dallas Morning News.
In other words, more thorough cementing and casing jobs could protect people who live near fracking wells from contamination.
“Many of the leaks probably occur when natural gas travels up the outside of the borehole, potentially even thousands of feet, and is released directly into drinking-water aquifers” Robert Poreda, another author of the study and professor at the University of Rochester said.
The researchers were able to trace where the methane that contaminated well water came from by tracking the noble gases — which don’t react with many other chemicals, and thus are easier to keep track of than some other gases — that are released with the methane.
This isn’t the first time contamination has been tied to faults in cementing and casing, rather than the actual act of drilling — including by leaders in the natural gas industry, who have struggled to assure the public of fracking’s safety amid reports of contamination and illness from people who live near fracking operations. In 2012, Mark Boling, executive vice president and general counsel of Southwestern Energy Co., said that the examples that he’s seen in Colorado and Pennsylvania where gas contaminated drinking water have all been “caused by a failure of the integrity of the well, and almost always it was the cement job.” The cementing and casing process is an essential part of any fracked well.
But anti-fracking activists say that cementing and casing are only part of fracking’s contamination problem. For one, there’s the issue of fracking waste: in 2012 alone, fracking wells in the U.S. created 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater according to a 2013 report from Environment America. That wastewater often contains carcinogens and even radioactive materials, and the deep pits that the wastewater gets stored in are not foolproof. In New Mexico alone, the report states, chemicals from oil and gas waste pits have contaminated water sources at least 421 times.
And whether it’s the act of drilling itself or failures in casing or waste storage, contamination from fracking operations is a major problem in natural gas-heavy parts of the country. Last month, Pennsylvania made 243 cases of contamination of private drinking wells from oil and gas drilling operations public for the first time. West Virginia, too, has linked cases of well water contamination to oil and gas drilling. And this month, researchers at the University of Texas found that levels of arsenic, selenium and strontium were higher than the EPA’s limits in some private wells located within about 1.8 miles of natural gas wells |
|
|
|
Tue Sep 16, 2014 6:52 am |
|
|
untanglingwebs
El Supremo
|
Climate Progress
“several lines of evidence [that] suggest the earthquakes in the area are directly related to the disposal of wastewater”
Scientists Find ‘Direct Link’ Between Earthquakes And Fracking Wastewater Process
The USGS research is just the latest in a string of studies that have suggested disposed fracking wastewater is migrating along dormant fault lines, changing...
thinkprogress.org
by Emily Atkin Posted on September 16, 2014 at 1:08 pm Updated: September 16, 2014 at 2:59 pm
"Scientists Find ‘Direct Link’ Between Earthquakes And Process Used For Oil And Gas Drilling"
A team of scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have found evidence “directly linking” the uptick in Colorado and New Mexico earthquakes since 2001 to wastewater injection, a process widely used in the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and conventional drilling.
In a study to be published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America on Tuesday, the scientists presented “several lines of evidence [that] suggest the earthquakes in the area are directly related to the disposal of wastewater” deep underground, according to a BSSA press release. Fracking and conventional natural gas companies routinely dispose of large amounts of wastewater underground after drilling. During fracking, the water is mixed with chemicals and sand, to “fracture” underground shale rock formations and make gas easier to extract.
The USGS research is just the latest in a string of studies that have suggested the disposed water is migrating along dormant fault lines, changing their state of stress, and causing them to fail.
For their research, the four California-based USGS scientists monitored the 2,200 square mile Raton Basin, which goes from southern Colorado into New Mexico. They pointed out that the Basin had been “seismically quiet” until 1999, when companies began “major fluid injection” deep into the ground. Earthquakes began in 2001 when Colorado wastewater injection rates were under 600,000 barrels per month, and and since then there have been 16 earthquakes that could be considered large (above a magnitude of 3.8, including two over a 5.0 magnitude), compared with only one — a 4.0 magnitude quake — in the 30 years prior.
al.
“These earthquakes are limited to the area of fluid injection, they occur shortly after major fluid injection activities began, and the earthquake rates track the fluid injection rates in the
Raton Basin,” the paper said, noting the scientists’ comparisons of the timing and location of earthquakes with the timing and location of injected wastewater. By the mid-2000s, Colorado’s wastewater injection rates were up to 1.9 million barrels per month.
Taking that and the unexpected frequency of the earthquakes into consideration, the paper noted that it was “highly unlikely” that the quakes could have been due to any random fluctuations underground.
“Detailed investigations of two seismic sequences places them in proximity to high-volume, high-injection-rate wells, and both sequences occurred after a nearby increase in the rate of injection,” the study’s accompanying press release said. “A comparison between seismicity and wastewater injection in Colorado and New Mexico reveals similar patterns, suggesting seismicity is initiated shortly after an increase in injection rates.”
The study does note that despite the strong and direct link, the findings are not definitive, echoing language often used by climate scientists to describe why it’s nearly impossible to say that individual weather events are caused by climate change. “Although there are many lines of evidence showing that the seismicity in the Raton Basin has been induced by wastewater injection activities in the area, it is very difficult to say whether an individual earthquake was caused by injection because natural seismicity has also been recorded there,” the study says. “For future research, a longer-term study with dense network coverage on both sides of the border would be especially useful in understanding the inducing relationship between the earthquakes and fluid injection in the Raton Basin.”
The U.S. government announced back in May that it would begin to track the risks that so-called “frackquakes” pose, and start including them on official maps that help influence building codes. Before then, the USGS had never taken man-made earthquakes into account during its regular quake mapping activity. It made the decision to do so after finding that two strong earthquakes in heavily-drilled areas of Colorado and Oklahoma in 2011 might have been the result of wastewater injection. “For future research, a longer-term study with dense network coverage on both sides of the border would be especially useful in understanding the inducing relationship between the earthquakes and fluid injection in the Raton Basin.”
Since then, drilling for natural gas and fracking has proliferated across the country, as have earthquakes in the places where those booms are occurring. Oklahoma, a hotbed for fracking, is currently experiencing anywhere from 5 to 20 small earthquakes every day, according to the state’s Geology Survey. What’s more, Cornell University scientists have linked more than 2,500 small earthquakes that have hit Oklahoma in the past five years to the wastewater disposal process.
These quakes are usually too small to be felt, but scientists have warned that they stand to get stronger as more wastewater injection happens — a likelihood considering the growing expansion of fracking. |
|
|
|
Tue Sep 16, 2014 2:11 pm |
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Register
Profile
FlintTalk.com Forum Index
> Political Talk
