What could possibility go wrong with fracking under an airport?

[kimbutgar]

I saw this little blurb in The Week magazine:

Pittsburgh's airport is reportedly sitting on enough natural gas to run the state of Pennsylvania for a year and a half. This month,an energy company will begin a series of horizontal drills to access the gas located under the terminals and runways.
The New York Times.

After reading this I can't get it out of my mind, just thinking of how a bad idea this is. If you are planning a trip to PA in the near future I would avoid this airport. This is the craziest thing I have ever heard of. Jets can cause friction on a runway on takeoff and imaging a chain reaction. A major man made disaster waiting to happen.

[jeff47]

1. So one summer back during college, I worked for a company

that tested underground fuel tanks and pipelines. Primarily, they tested gas stations. My temp job was to send out the official "CA law requires that we test your tanks to make sure they don't leak. Your oil company's contracted with us to do so. Schedule now" letters.

But one of their customers was LAX. And they failed. Over and over again. Their jet fuel pipelines kept leaking like crazy. After a failure, the LAX people would take a look at the line and figure out what went wrong, fix it, and then call to be re-tested.

Most frequent problem? Pipelines that had no cap on the end. As in LAX was pumping lots and lots and lots of jet fuel into the ground around LAX.

[valerief]

2. Bet it's renamed Earthquake Airport soon. nt

[TexasProgresive]

3. I think most or all seismic activity from fracing

Has not been from fracing but from the use of injection wells to dump waste water.

[valerief]

5. Isn't that part of the fracking process? nt

[TexasProgresive]

6. Yes but the injection wells are elsewhere. n/t

[valerief]

7. I see. So the fracking displacement water is injected deeper than

the disposal water injections.

[TexasProgresive]

8. The waste water used in hydraulic fracking

that is injected into a disposal well is from many well sites. I may be wrong but I have not read of any earthquake activity attributed to the actual fracking process. This does not mean fracking is safe just that it doesn't appear that the process is a direct cause of earthquakes.

It is important to know what the facts are because the proponents of (fill in the blank) will argue that one is clueless and toss out all the valid points because of a minor inaccuracy.

They are doing a lot of fracking around me. I regularly check if our well water will catch fire. so far, so good, but that doesn't test for toxic chemicals.

[valerief]

9. Thanks, but if disposing of the water is part of the fracking process and the disposed

water might be the cause of earthquakes, then fracking causes earthquakes. I realize you're pointing out it's a two-step process, but both steps are part of the fracking process.

Good luck with your water. That must be horrible for you.

[TexasProgresive]

10. It's just that the injection wells are not particularly close to the drill sites.

So the point made about drilling under an airport and earthquakes is not very strong.

[TransitJohn]

12. No, it's not

This is why nothing meaningful will ever get done to regulate fracking, because people use the word fracking to mean things it's not. Please educate yourselves, people.

[valerief]

13. throwing away fracking water isn't part of the whole process? nt

[glinda]

4. insane...

[TransitJohn]

11. Lol

You should write screenplays.
Friction?

[A HERETIC I AM]

14. Everytime an airplane lands....

it drags the runway just a tad.


Didn't you know that?