Oklahoma is now the most earthquake-prone state in the nation, considerably outdistancing California, according to the USGS. Yesterday morning a 5.6 in magnitude quake hit northcentral Oklahoma, with shaking felt as far away as Arizona and the Midwest. The record-settling quake has been linked to oilfield wastewater disposal, according to state regulators, who ordered aContinue reading “The earthquake in Oklahoma in 2016 — and in Colorado in 1966”
Tag Archives: fracking
Scenes from an explosion/investigation: Fracking radioactivity sent to Oxnard/Pacific
Although it hasn’t been widely reported, the explosion at Santa Clara Waste Water Corporation (SCWWC) near Santa Paula last November came about a month after the Oxnard waste water treatment plant, which processes the waste water sent to it via a 14-mile pipeline from SCWW, noticed high levels of radioactivity in its sampling. Because the waste waterContinue reading “Scenes from an explosion/investigation: Fracking radioactivity sent to Oxnard/Pacific”
Ojai Chatauqua on fracking: know your CA geology
Part of what the Ojai Chautauqua tries to do every couple of months is bring out information regarding complex topics, which is what I tried to do in part as a moderator this past Sunday for a panel on fracking. What did we learn? Well, here's one item, from Kimberly Rivers story in the OjaiContinue reading “Ojai Chatauqua on fracking: know your CA geology”
Ojai fracking panel agrees: more transparency please!
Over the last four or so months I put together a panel on fracking for the Ojai Chautauqua, a centrist group that holds public forums/discussions on controversial issues at the Ojai Valley Inn. (Think I'm beginning to learn how to do it: This is the third such panel I put together this year, and theContinue reading “Ojai fracking panel agrees: more transparency please!”
Oilco’s spend $9 million to defeat county anti-fracking efforts in CA
According to this excellent story from Reporting on Health fellow Leilani Clark, oil companies such as Aera, Chevron, and Exxon-Mobil have donated more than $1.7 million to efforts to defeat Proposition J in San Benito county, which would ban fracking. Ever heard of San Benito? True confession: I hadn't. Despite spending most of my lifeContinue reading “Oilco’s spend $9 million to defeat county anti-fracking efforts in CA”
Ventura County busts fracking injection well in Oxnard
From the Ventura County Star, news today of a police bust of an injection well site in Oxnard — the only site in the county that accepts fracking fluid for disposal purposes.
OXNARD, Calif. – Investigators from the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office converged on the site of a local oil field waste company outside Oxnard on Thursday with search warrants.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Christopher Harman said investigators arrived at Anterra Corp.’s waste disposal site on East Wooley Road outside Oxnard on Thursday morning. The company’s headquarters in Santa Paula was also served, he said.
Harman said he could provide no further details about the open investigation of possible criminal violations.
Anterra officials had no prior warning of the searches and had not been interviewed by any agency before the investigators arrived, company attorney Jim Prosser said Thursday.
Prosser said he understands that investigators are looking at company activities in and around July 2013, when Anterra was under different management. He declined to say who was managing the company at that time, saying he didn’t know enough about the circumstances and the time period under investigation.
Interesting, but the timing mentioned by the corporation doesn't seem to jibe with this note from our local watchdog group, CFROG, which posted this a month ago about what sounded like an on-going dispute between the county and the corporation.
The Ventura County planning department is alleging that in just five months, at the Anterra Waste injection wells in Oxnard , the company injected 19.2 million gallons or 457 thousand barrels or of waste into two disposal wells on East Wooley road. (42 gallons = 1 barrel) They allegedly accepted a total of 4350 tanker trucks when the CUP allows 3096. (still far too many for safety in Oxnard in our opinion.) That's 1254 trucks coming down our highways and streets in violation of the current permit according to Ventura County. Class II underground injection wells. can take any fluid related to oil and gas drilling, including fracking waste water.
Anterra is appealing the decision on some interesting grounds including claims that planning manager Brian Baca is unethical and a hearing will be held October 23rd.
For some reason the Star story today did not mention this dispute over the volumes of fluids being disposed beneath Oxnard, although you must figure it's at the root of the conflict. It's well-known among geologists that there are thresholds to be attained before seismicity becomes possible. which is why the volume of fluids can be a crucial matter. But the paper has three reporters on this, so I'm sure we haven't heard the end of it.
Was just talking today with a geophysicist at UCSB who said a new study from CalTech found "induced seismicity" — earthquakes connected to injection wells — at a handful of injection wells sites in Kern County, out of a total of 1600.
So why worry? Right?
But the Ventura County D.A. has issues, clearly, when they send what looks like a SWAT to collect records from a corporation. Why the urgency if they're investigating what happened a year ago?
Follow-up from a commentator, Quiet against the Noise, in the "comm boxes" below the newspaper story, who seems to know more than all the rest of us put together. See here (or below the fold).
Little known fracking fact: it’s costing us in ice cream
Here's a story from an interesting blog on the Utica Shale, a story on five facts about fracking that you may not know — and a chart. Veteran environmental reporter Bob Downing of the Akron Journal maintains this blog,and said that it gives 10-15k hits a week — impressive. For those of us on theContinue reading “Little known fracking fact: it’s costing us in ice cream”
Quakes strike fracked oil reserve in Ireland, Gov Says
Here's some news about fracking and earthquakes in Ireland: The largest earthquakes since 1843 have been confirmed by the British Geological Survey in the same area of the Irish Sea that suffered tremors directly linked to shale gas fracking. The two quakes occurred on Sunday morning with a magnitude 3.2 ML earthquake recorded at 10.58am, preceded byContinue reading “Quakes strike fracked oil reserve in Ireland, Gov Says”
Shale oil: Overhyped?
Two weeks ago at a conference on fracking in Agoura, an industry analyst named Gordon Pickering told about 150 geologically sophisticated insiders that natural gas companies are seeing rapid rates of decline in production in the Bakken formation in North Dakota. "It's requiring more and more drilling, and becoming increasingly energy intensive," he said. "TheContinue reading “Shale oil: Overhyped?”
Why California is not going to ban fracking by initiative
At the enormously helpful Hydraulic Fracturing conference put on by the American Groundwater Trust, State Senator Fran Pavley concluded her talk by alluding to the possibility that if California voters feel that nothing is being done to protect their groundwater, they may take matters into their own hands and vote for an initiative to regulateContinue reading “Why California is not going to ban fracking by initiative”
Kit Stolz 