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| Clearing fallen bricks in Sparks, Oklahoma, November 2001, after two earthquakes hit the area in less than 24 hours. |
Oklahoma has never been known as earthquake country, with a yearly average of about 50 tremors, almost all of them minor. But in the past three years, the state has had thousands of quakes. This year has been the most active, with more than 2,600 so far, including 87 last week.
Fossil Fuel's Wastewater Creating Earthquake Boom
by Jon Queally, staff writer, Common Dreams, 13 December 2013
Pumped underground using disposal wells, the leftover water from oil and gas drilling is literally shifting the ground beneath communities
In Oklahoma, the oil and gas industry have drilled more than 4,000 "disposal wells" designed to hold wastewater produced from the tens of thousands of extraction drilling sites scattered throughout the state.
But as those wells have grown in number and the millions of gallons of wastewater—generated as an inevitable bi-product from the fossil fuel industry—are pumped into the seems of the earth beneath, something else is happening. Earthquakes. And lots of them.
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But as those wells have grown in number and the millions of gallons of wastewater—generated as an inevitable bi-product from the fossil fuel industry—are pumped into the seems of the earth beneath, something else is happening. Earthquakes. And lots of them.