Posted: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 12:15 am
Updated: 2:15 pm, Wed Aug 21, 2013.
...Researchers at Youngstown State University in Ohio report (click here) that a single injection well was responsible for 107 earthquakes there, with magnitudes of up to 3.9 recorded, all within one year of it becoming operational.
The activity reportedly stopped after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources shut the well down in December of 2011.
In their letter, the commissioners say current injection well pressure regulations in place do little to address the potential for “earthquake events.” In addition, the commissioners fear that such an event risks large scale contamination of underground water supplies. The commissioners are the latest entity to publicly oppose the injection well planned for Highland Township.
Earlier this year, the Highland Township Supervisors passed an ordinance banning injection wells in an attempt to block Seneca Resources from going ahead with its plans to develop one near James City. They claimed the ordinance was an attempt to protect its local water supply.
“The people of Highland Township and James City are very, very concerned about this injection well and they have asked us to do anything we can to speak out on their behalf,” Commissioner Dan Freeburg said on Tuesday.
Josie Schultz, a community advisor with oil and natural gas corporation EQT, was in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting where she said a definitive link between injection wells and seismic events has yet to made.
“Personally, I don’t believe that there’s a correlation, but there are studies that show discrepancies,” Schultz said, adding that geology could be playing a greater role than industry operations in the seismic activity.
The commissioners’ letter comes as the EPA finishes gathering public comment on the Highland Township injection well. The EPA will issue a response to comments before announcing a final permit decision within 30 days. The public has 30 days from then to appeal the decision by petitioning the Environmental Appeals Board. If the permit goes unchallenged it would become effective immediately....
This is the ground breaking Texas study.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
...Frohlich analyzed seismic data collected between November 2009 and September 2011 by the EarthScope USArray Program, a National Science Foundation-funded network of broadband seismometers from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. Because of the high density of instruments (25 in or near the Barnett Shale), Frohlich was able to detect earthquakes down to magnitude 1.5, far too weak for people to feel at the surface.
He found that the most reliably located earthquakes—those which are accurate to within about 0.9 miles (1.5 kilometers)—occurred in eight groups, all within 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) of one or more injection wells. Before this study, the National Earthquake Information Center had only identified two earthquake groups in the area strongly associated with specific injection wells. This suggests injection-triggered earthquakes are far more common than is generally recognized....
