Quantcast
Powered by RebelMouse
Energy
Cole Mellino
Jan. 11, 2016 10:44AM EST

70 More Earthquakes Hit Oklahoma, Averaging Nearly Three a Day in 2015

The state of Oklahoma was rocked by more than 70 earthquakes last week. Two of the largest quakes measured magnitude 4.7 and 4.8 and struck in the rural northern part of the state, beneath a major oil and gas producing area. The week before that, the state was hit by a dozen tremors in less than a week, prompting the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, to order several injection well operators to reduce wastewater disposal volumes.

Scientists have linked this ongoing spate of tremors to the state’s drilling boom. The Oklahoma Geological Survey concluded that the injection of wastewater byproducts into deep underground disposal wells from fracking operations has triggered the seismic activity in the state.

In November 2015, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported that Oklahoma now experiences more earthquakes than anywhere else in the world. Oklahoma went from two earthquakes a year before 2009 to two a day. Prior to the state’s fracking boom, it averaged 1 to 2 earthquakes of a magnitude 3 or higher per year. By 2009, that number rose to 20. By 2013, it jumped to 585. And, according to Thom Hartmann of The Big Picture, data from the U.S. Geological Survey shows that in 2015 Oklahoma experienced 881 earthquakes of a magnitude 3 or higher—that’s an average of nearly three per day.

Between 2013 and 2015, "Oklahoma experienced a yearly average of 733 earthquakes, which is a nearly 39,000 percent increase from the 40-year average before 2008," Hartmann said. A seismologist at the National Earthquake Information Center called it "almost a millennium’s worth of earthquakes in two years.”

Watch Thom Hartmann of The Big Picture discuss with Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen's Energy Program whether this could be the wakeup call America needs to ban fracking once and for all:

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE

Super PAC Credits Hillary Clinton for Selling Fracking to the World

Porter Ranch Is Only Tip of the Iceberg Exposing Catastrophic Impacts of Natural Gas

EPA Scientists Call Foul on Fracking Study, Say Findings ‘Inconsistent With Data Presented’

12 Earthquakes Hit Frack-Happy Oklahoma in Less Than a Week

Show Comments ()
Sponsored
Animals
www.facebook.com

Car Pollution Is Killing Coho Salmon

The grisly video above shows a coho salmon struggling to survive in polluted stormwater runoff on the Duwamish River in Washington. This contaminated water—filled with oil from cars, pesticides, dirt and debris—can kill this particular species of Pacific salmon in hours, according to Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, which posted the clip on Oct. 21.

Sadly, it appears that this fish is one of many coho salmon in the Puget Sound Basin that have died, and will continue to die, from this man-made tragedy.

Keep reading... Show less
Animals
A tiger known as Tony spent his life in a cage at a Louisiana truck stop. Tony died last week. Janusz Sobolewski / Flickr

The Tragic Tale of Tony the Truck Stop Tiger

By Stephen Wells

For more than six years, the Animal Legal Defense Fund fought tirelessly to save a tiger named Tony from a cage in the parking lot of a Louisiana truck stop. Sadly, we received news last week that Tony had died of kidney failure after spending 16 years confined to his cage, living and dying as a roadside attraction. Tony's plight is a microcosm of the problems with our legal system, a system that treats sentient beings as property and affords disproportionate political influence to their captors and abusers.

Tony was born into captivity, sentenced from birth to a life of exploitation, a gimmick used by his owner Michael Sandlin to sell gasoline at the Tiger Truck Stop. It doesn't take a degree in veterinary medicine to know that a truck stop is no place for a tiger. But veterinarians and animal behaviorists weighed in emphatically on Tony's behalf. Dr. Jennifer Conrad, a doctor of veterinary medicine with decades of experience with captive large cats, personally visited Tony and concluded that he was "exploited to the detriment of his welfare."

Keep reading... Show less
Climate

'Landmark Decision' Casts Youth as Official Intervenors in Pipeline Case

By Frank Jossi

In what is regarded as an unusual step, a group of 13 young people have joined together to become court sanctioned intervenors as they fight a proposed Enbridge Energy pipeline through northern Minnesota.

Intervenors are sanctioned by the state Public Utilities Commission to represent parties in contested cases. They are generally lawyers and experts hired by energy firms, clean energy organizations, environmental groups, governmental agencies and an occasional citizen or two.

Keep reading... Show less
Renewable Energy
The Masdar Solar Hub in the United Arab Emirates is a state-of-the art solar testing and R&D hub for photovoltaic and solar thermal technology. Masdar

Solar Power Forecast: Record-Low Costs Expected to Keep Plummeting as Technology Improves

The already-plummeting costs of installing solar power could fall an additional 60 percent over the next decade, the head of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) said Monday.

IRENA director general Adnan Amin told Reuters that the organization expects an additional 80 to 90 GW of solar capacity will be added worldwide each year for the next five to six years, and that improvements in technology, including batteries, will help drive down costs.

Keep reading... Show less
Sponsored
Trump Watch
Scott Pruitt. Gage Skidmore / Flickr

Report: EPA Hires 12 More Bodyguards for Pruitt, Costing $2M Annually for Full Security Team

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt has been noted for taking unusual steps to operate with extreme caution at the job—including the installation of a $25,000 soundproof communications booth and contravening a bi-partisan EPA transparency practice of keeping his schedule secret.

Now, CNN reports, the EPA is expanding Pruitt's security detail with an additional 12 agents, meaning his total security fleet stands at 30 bodyguards. This will cost the department $2 million a year in salaries alone and does not include training, equipment or travel.

Keep reading... Show less
Energy
Surfrider Foundation / Twitter

Offshore Oil Drilling May Be Coming to a Coastline Near You

By Pete Stauffer

It's nearly impossible to convince certain people, most notably leaders of our federal administration, that bold action is needed on climate change, but recent events have certainly made a compelling case.

Three major hurricanes have battered U.S. coasts in recent months, impacting the lives of millions of people and causing billions of dollars in damage. Although no single storm event can be blamed directly on climate change, scientific experts agree that the warming climate and ocean waters contribute to the frequency and scale of hurricanes—putting the residents, natural resources and economic security of coastal communities at elevated risk. This makes the Trump administration's proposal to expand offshore oil drilling off U.S. coasts all the more dubious.

Keep reading... Show less
Sponsored
Popular
Taken on Oct. 11 in Barrio Maní, Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. Cathy Mazak

'We Are Not OK': A First-Hand Account of Hurricane Maria

By Cathy Mazak

I'm so happy to be able to communicate with you again. As many of you know, I live in western Puerto Rico. In this post I want to tell you a little about my family's experience with Maria, and how you can help Puerto Rico.

On Thursday Sept. 21, when the sun came up, I looked out our front door at a wintery landscape. There was not one leaf on one tree in all the tropical forest that surrounds our property. Instead, the walls of my house were plastered with one-inch-by-one-inch pieces of leaves. It was as if they had been stripped off the trees, chopped in a food processor, and coated onto our house with a pressure washer.

Keep reading... Show less
Climate
Shutterstock

12 Global Cities Commit to Create Green and Healthy Streets By 2030

On Monday, the mayors of London, Paris, Los Angeles, Copenhagen, Barcelona, Quito, Vancouver, Mexico City, Milan, Seattle, Auckland and Cape Town committed to a series of ambitious targets to make their cities greener, healthier and more prosperous. By signing the C40 Fossil-Fuel-Free Streets Declaration, the pioneering city leaders pledged to procure only zero-emission buses from 2025 and ensure that a major area of their city is zero emission by 2030. The policies are designed to fight air pollution, improve the quality of life for all citizens and help tackle the global threat of climate change.

Keep reading... Show less
Sponsored

mail-copy

Get EcoWatch in your inbox