Hydrofracking Probable Cause Of Ohio's Eleven Earthquakes

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Hydrofracking: it's 100% natural! A worker operates a hydraulic fracturing well in Pennsylvania this summer (AP)

New Yorkers have until January 11 to tell the Department of Environmental Conservation how they feel about hydrofracking, and the results of the practice in Ohio should light up their switchboards. Usually Ohio's most dangerous faults are Drew Carey-related, but it has experienced eleven earthquakes since March. Although all of them were minor, the most recent on Saturday was a 4.0 magnitude, and according to the Times the state has ordered gas companies to stop injecting "millions of gallons of brine and other waste liquids" into the ground near Youngstown until scientists can pinpoint what was going on.

Of course, there is a little theory they've been kicking around: injecting millions of gallons of noxious chemicals and "brine" deep into the earth is a bad idea. Ohio state officials John Armbruster, a scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory suspects that the fluid—pumped 9,200 feet into the ground—has migrated into ancient rock formations further down into the earth. "Having that many earthquakes fairly close to a well in Ohio, where there aren't a lot of earthquakes, was suspicious."

And just because the pumping has stopped, doesn't mean the tremors will. "The earthquakes will trickle on as a kind of a cascading process once you've caused them to occur," Armbruster tells the AP. "This one year of pumping is a pulse that has been pushed into the ground, and it's going to be spreading out for at least a year." And the news that Saturday's earthquake occurred at the same location of one a week before it is sure to bring New Year's bonuses to the PR firms of gas companies everywhere.

So tell Governor Cuomo how fun this August's earthquake was, and that you're tired of drinking that boring, odorless New York City tap water.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Christopher Robbins in News on January 3, 2012 3:57 PM

Comments [rss]

FreeDumb1

everyone loves a jeffery

birdtird

hope this doesn't disrupt the gathering of the juggalos 2012

whiteiris

Environmentalists Were For Fracking Before They Were Against It

http://reason.com/archives/201...

SPsGhost

do you have a point?

pendejito

But HEY, earthquakes aren't THAT bad. They produce much needed AMERICAN jobs!

FU Boy

Just think of it as forcing out infrastructure to collapse so we can rebuild!

da_phonz

So hydrofracking in Detroit is ok?

Dead Himmler

Hydrofracking would not be ok in Detroit. A hydrogen bomb however might be the more appropriate measure.

WorksInDUMBO

Usually Ohio's most dangerous faults are Drew Carey-related...
It's these kinds of lame, sophomoric attempts at snark that are making me read Gothamist less and less these days.