Ohio Mayor Buys Quake Insurance as He Seeks Answers on Fracking

[kpete]

Ohio Mayor Buys Quake Insurance as He Seeks Answers on Fracking

Bloomberg:

The mayor of Youngstown, Ohio, says he wonders whether a well used to dispose of wastewater from oil and natural-gas drilling is making his city shake. Just to be safe, he’s bought earthquake insurance.

“You lose your whole house, that’s your life savings, and if you have no money or no insurance to replace it, then what do you do?” Mayor Charles P. Sammarone said in a telephone interview today. “Information is needed to make the homeowner and the residents feel safe.”

There have been 11 earthquakes in this northeastern Ohio city since D&L Energy Inc. began injecting drilling brine, a byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, 9,200 feet (2,804 meters) underground in December 2010. The strongest, magnitude 4.0, hit last week on New Year’s Eve.

Sammarone said he has asked the City Council to pass a resolution tonight supporting state Representative Robert F. Hagan, a city Democrat who has called for a moratorium on so- called fracking and injection-well activity “until we can conclude it’s safe.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-04/ohio-mayor-buys-quake-insurance-as-he-seeks-answers-on-fracking.html

[handmade34]

1. NPR this morning had this report

http://www.npr.org/2012/01/05/144694550/man-made-quakes-blame-fracking-and-drilling

[RKP5637]

2. Hmmmm, I wonder if Quake Insurance covers man made quakes when claim time comes.

I doubt these are natural geological occurrences. ... too many coincidences.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. Good point. I suppose reading the fine print would be in order...

And I bet insurance underwriters are changing guidelines as we speak.