4.0 magnitude quake strikes in northeast Ohio, the latest near a gas drilling injection well

[ixion]

McDONALD, Ohio — The latest in a series of minor earthquakes in northeast Ohio hit on Saturday, sending some stunned residents running for cover as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables.

The 4.0 magnitude quake struck Saturday afternoon in McDonald, outside of Youngstown, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Area residents said a loud boom accompanied the shaking, but sheriff’s dispatchers from several counties in the area said there were no immediate reports of damage.

A few miles from the epicenter, Charles Kihm said he was preparing food in his kitchen when he heard a noise an

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/40-magnitude-quake-strikes-in-northeast-ohio-the-latest-near-a-gas-drilling-injection-well/2011/12/31/gIQAhiRoSP_story.html


Yeah, so tell me again how fracking doesn't cause earthquakes.

[gateley]

1. Where are they fracking? Thanks. nt

[Charlemagne]

2. We are killing ourselves

Our lust for resources has now caused us to create earthquakes.

[RedCloud]

13. They not we are killing us.

[BenYehuda]

3. BAN FRANKING IN THE US!!! BEFORE 5000 DIE!! I MEAN ARE MURDERED!!!

[SpiralHawk]

22. Yes - the fracking has to stop.

Many Americans are beginning to see how stupid and destructive it is -- and they are going to make it an issue.

[hedgehog]

4. This is only the latest in a series of quakes -

the drilling operations were stopped last week!

The small earthquake that shook Youngstown on Christmas Eve had a depth shallower than originally reported, prompting the Ohio Department of Natural Resources on Friday to order D&L Energy Inc. to cease operations at a nearby brine-injection well.

The magnitude 2.5 earthquake, officially the 10th since March 17 to occur within two miles of the brine-injection well on Ohio Works Drive, had a depth of 11,000 feet, said Andy Ware, deputy director at ODNR. It was the shallowest depth of any of the quakes.

That is only about 2,000 feet below the bottom of the D&L injection well, which ceased operations as of 5 p.m. Friday.

http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/dec/31/dampl-halts-operations-at-brine-well/

[Joe Bacon]

16. USGS link

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsus/Maps/US10/37.47.-85.-75.php

[greiner3]

31. So soon Fox News will begin their campaign of;

Telling the world that the USGS is 'controversial' because of its ability to 'see' earthquakes.

There will be the usual cast of 'earthquake deniers' and alternative reasons why the Earth is behaving as it does.

Earthquake Science; is it a FACT or is it only a THEORY?

[Justice wanted]

5. Imagine that. The report I read in the local headlines said a Explosion was heard. BUT no one

could determine where it came from.


This is like the 3rd one to be felt in the area this past year.

[sce56]

18. If you are at a shallow quake site the sound from the slip of the earth sounds like an explosion!

I used to work at a GeoThermal Gensite since it is on a active volcanic area there are many earthquakes all the time as the magma moves underground. The first quake I felt there sounded like an explosion which surprised me since I don't recall hearing that from any of the other ones I felt in California!

[madrchsod]

6. from 2000---earthquake risks in ohio

http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/07/09/loc_earthquake_risk.html

[limpyhobbler]

7. that's not a fracking site, that's the injection well where they dump the toxic waste water.

Like the fracking site, it is also a very deep hole. I don't know if it is causing earthquakes or not, but this certainly is fishy.

At a minimum we should be concerned that the earthquake could cause the waste water to leak into the water table or drinking water sources. If it wasn't already, which is doubtful.

The practice described in the article has in fact already been banned in Pennsylvania because of drinking water contamination, but Ohio still allows it. And so they are trucking all this toxic fracking byproduct from Pennsylvania to these dump sites in Ohio. They say they are injecting it so deep underground that it can't get into the water supply, but nobody should believe that. Pennsylvania had enough sense to ban it, but now Pennsylvania's fracking waste is just being trucked to Ohio. I nominate right behind John Kasich's house as the next waste water injection site.

[unbrainwashed]

26. ban

Is that a ban on new permits, are they allowing it still on existing permits?

[limpyhobbler]

28. I think it's just the waste water (brine) disposal that's been banned in PA.

I'm not sure about the existing permits.

Here's some of the news stories I've seen referring to the PA ban, but I don't see anything about existing permits. I'm not really sure if brine deep injection is banned in PA or not, since a couple places I do see the geology just doesn't support it there...

"Pennsylvania in May banned brine from wastewater treatment plants, so drilling companies began shipping the liquid to Ohio."
http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/nov/23/brine-fees-pump-m-into-states-funds-in-/?print


"The wastewater from drilling operations is banned from many Pennsylvania wastewater treatment plants and geology there does not support brine-injection wells. However, geology does support those wells in Ohio and as a result, about 500,000 barrels of brine from Pennsylvania gas drilling operations have found their way to wells in Ohio for disposal."
http://thepostnewspapers.com/northernwayne/injection-wells--SM-NW-counties--7-2---wojciak--clone


"Roughly 55 percent of the brine injected into Ohio wells comes from “out of district,” and probably from Pennsylvania, where officials recently banned the dumping of brine in that state’s streams."
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/09/25/fracking-wastewater-floods-ohio.html

[nebenaube]

40. it's a lie to call it brine

Brine is sodium chloride in water, the compostion of fracking fluid is unknown to the general public. I don't believe that they can pump up enough hydraulic pressure to fracture rock so the fluid must contain gas producing reactants, only god knows what chemistry is actually occuring in those wells or what the consequences will be.

[limpyhobbler]

41. right...toxic waste of unknown composition

[russspeakeasy]

8. It was interesting to read about this in Stephen King's book 11/22/63.

He talks about the "poppers" in the NE and Maine voting to become a part of Canada...

[doc03]

9. The first I have heard of this in Ohio. If fracking is causing them we

better get used to them we a getting thousands of wells the next few years. All the big landowners around me sold so I entered into a gas lease myself on my 1+ acre.

[ixion]

10. It may be time to get your house on shock absorbers

[doc03]

11. I am planing on moving to Florida before the stuff hits the fan here, I will probably need pontoons

on my house down there because of the rise in the sea level.

[spin]

21. We get earthquakes in Florida too...

2006 Gulf of Mexico earthquake

The 2006 Gulf of Mexico earthquake was a 5.8 magnitude[1] earthquake that hit the Gulf of Mexico on September 10, 2006, about 250 miles west-southwest of Anna Maria, Florida around 10:56 AM EDT.

The quake was reportedly felt from Louisiana to Florida. There were no reports of major damages or casualties[2]. Items were knocked from shelves and seiches were observed in swimming pools in parts of Florida [1]. The earthquake was described by the USGS as a midplate earthquake, the largest and most widely felt recorded in the past three decades in the region[1].

According to the September 11, 2006, issue of The Tampa Tribune, earthquake tremors were last felt in Florida in 1952, recorded in Quincy, 20 miles northwest of Tallahassee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Gulf_of_Mexico_earthquake

At the time I was near Lake City Florida in a camper trailer. I thought something strange was happening when I noticed a picture on the wall shift slightly.

If you decide to move to Florida it's not a bad idea to have flood insurance. We do get a lot of rain down here. Just buy a home a few miles inland and wait for it to become waterfront property due to global warming. You should get a nice return on your investment.

[blue neen]

12. Meanwhile, the gas companies in our very back yards say:

"It's all perfectly safe...the Shale rock is impermeable!" Why are we having earthquakes in areas of the country where they rarely occurred?

"The fracking water never seeps up." Has anyone seen the EPA report on Wyoming's contaminated water supplies caused by fracking water that SEEPED UP!

These bastards have drilled Marcellus Shale wells right next to this municipal water supply (Beaver Run Reservoir, SW Pennsylvania):

http://www.marcellus-shale.us/

"The D.E.P. (PA agency) are are all over us about safety." Meanwhile, Pennsylvania does not have enough Marcellus Shale inspectors and has limited the authority of the ones it does have!

http://www.propublica.org/article/pennsylvania-limits-authority-of-oil-and-gas-inspectors/single

Pennsylvania's Governor, Tom Corbett, has been bought and paid for by the Oil and Gas Industry. He's got to be the biggest corporate tool this state has ever seen.

[Lugnut]

24. +100 n/t

[blue neen]

14. Excellent video about the fracking process in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10173564

Everybody needs to be educated about what is really going on here.

[AtheistCrusader]

15. It's called Fault Lubrication.

The Army discovered this, pumping contaminated water into the ground to dispose of it in, like, the 50's. USGS noticed a pattern in the quakes, which seemed to coincide with 'working hours'. Found they could turn the quakes on and off by turning the pumping equipment on and off.

[RoccoR5955]

33. I keep telling people this.

But few listen, and some who do listen, ask me how I know that it's not just a "natural" earthquake. When I tell them that you can't map all the little faults in all the underground formations, they ask why. I tell them that they are too deep, and it's too costly, and in some cases just impossible, but we shouldn't be lubricating them with water, or weakening them with fracturing. It's a huge job trying to educate some people.

[sarcasmo]

17. Didn't Oklahoma have a bunch of these small quakes this summer?

[FogerRox]

36. Yeah, but injection wells were over 40 miles away from epicenter

Unlike the Arkansas Guy swarm which was on top of a fault and within 400 yards of over 250 epicenters.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

19. 4 is a truck going down the street...

...unless you live in Ohio.

Now, a dust devil in the West is a tornado.

Pick your poison.

[Duer 157099]

20. How long before insurance companies stop covering earthquakes

because they'll declare them man-made, no longer "acts of god"?

[blue neen]

23. Excellent point.

There sure as hell is immeasurable damage being done to our homes, properties, and lives that will not be covered by insurance, or gas companies, or corrupted governors.

They will definitely not be considered acts of god. They surely are acts of sheer greed.

[itsrobert]

25. Actually most basic homeowners insurance do not cover earthquakes

Earthquake coverage is extra in most cases.

[saras]

27. That needs to change now that we know that we can cause them.

In those cases, the insurance companies can collect from the resource companies causing the earthquakes. And insurance companies don't need proof, they just need data. If the quakes appear with the fracking, insurance companies can profit from predicting them, and eventually they will.

[Frack Glop]

29. Chesapeake Energy – Peeking Behind the Curtain

Chesapeake Energy – Peeking Behind the Curtain
Connecting the Dots: The Marcellus Natural Gas Play Players – Part 2
By Dory Hippauf
http://commonsense2.com/2012/01/national-politics/connecting-the-dots-the-marcellus-natural-gas-play-players-part-2/

[fasttense]

30. Our corporations and shell companies have gotten so out of control,

they are causing earth quakes. And yet there are people who support them and argue for their continued stampeded over everyone's civil and property rights. It's just amazing to watch organized groups of very rich people, led by psychopaths, destroy people's health and property with impunity.

This is what "free" markets lead to.

[freshwest]

38. And in the PBS film 'Gasland' were abetted by those farmers who sold their mineral rights, so that

They could get some money to retire elsewhere, with no concern over the lasting damage they did by doing so.

They were heedless of what is right for all, maintaining clean water for all life in the future, not just their short ones.

This is also one of the causes of Occupy:

Mic Check! Ohio Students Interrupt Gas Industry

&feature=youtu.be

[jdadd]

32. I recently read

They are going to Drill two disposal wells just north of Mansfield (central) Ohio. Bring waste in on Railroad....The local Republicans are praising all the jobs this will create.... Am I going to be forced to build a still, just to get safe drinking water?

[otohara]

34. The Brine Waste Water ?????

that's what they're calling it now?
Turkey anyone?

[Maeve]

35. Kasich gets something right--stops waste disposal

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/01/01/state-links-quakes-to-work-on-wells.html

Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then....

[FogerRox]

37. Within one mile of an injection well

http://thecomingcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/12/earthquakes-force-ohio-to-shut-down.html

[KansDem]

39. Peak Oil

It's starting to make sense now: fracking, tar sands, deep-water drilling, mountain-top removal, and nuclear power plants...

They know we're on the downside of Peak Oil. We're running out of fossil fuels so they're going after dangerous deep-water drilling (Gulf Coast), filthy tar sands (Keystone XL pipeline), dangerous nuclear energy (Fukishma), and toxic, earth-quake producing fracking.

Too bad when Dr. Hubbert first theorized about Peak Oil in the 1950s, we didn't take steps then. But, we had to let capitalism dictate national policies. Only they knew what was good for us and the nation...

[icymist]

42. I grew up in this part of Ohio, just fourteen miles from Youngstown.

I watched them blow up the blast furnacess from 15 of 16 steel mills there back in 80 through 82. The place is quite impoverished and I'm sure that fracting means jobs. When that happens, even the stictist of environmentalists either move (I did) or they become quiet. We sent our industrial base overseas. This is the price that these ex-millworkers have to pay. I cry for them almost everyday.