The USA EPA should use this opportunity to deeply regulate the practice of waste and toxic injection into the ground. Such practices have resulted in chronic seismic activity accompanying these practices. Texas is a state like Oklahoma where industry of any kind regardless of harmful results is put first over citizens'health. Making a wage and paying taxes is more important than life.
By Anna Kuchment
Locations of Injection-Induced Earthquakes...(click here)
Jacob Walter (click here) likes to remind people that what has transpired in Oklahoma over the past decade is unprecedented in human history.
Walter is Oklahoma’s state seismologist, and he is talking about the surge of earthquakes that has plagued his state since its most recent oil-and-gas boom. Production techniques—including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—led to large-scale underground wastewater disposal, which scientists have tied to the state’s 900-fold increase in quakes since 2008. After 2015, when oil demand fell as prices dropped and Oklahoma instituted new wastewater-disposal rules, earthquake rates fell sharply. Still, the state continued to see rare but damaging tremors triggered by the fluids that had already been shunted underground. “I don’t think people fully appreciate the scale, the amount of water that was injected over the years,” Walter says, adding that humans have now caused four of the five largest earthquakes in Oklahoma’s recorded history....
Jacob Walter (click here) likes to remind people that what has transpired in Oklahoma over the past decade is unprecedented in human history.
Walter is Oklahoma’s state seismologist, and he is talking about the surge of earthquakes that has plagued his state since its most recent oil-and-gas boom. Production techniques—including hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—led to large-scale underground wastewater disposal, which scientists have tied to the state’s 900-fold increase in quakes since 2008. After 2015, when oil demand fell as prices dropped and Oklahoma instituted new wastewater-disposal rules, earthquake rates fell sharply. Still, the state continued to see rare but damaging tremors triggered by the fluids that had already been shunted underground. “I don’t think people fully appreciate the scale, the amount of water that was injected over the years,” Walter says, adding that humans have now caused four of the five largest earthquakes in Oklahoma’s recorded history....
February 23, 2023
Deer Park - Toxic wastewater (click here) used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information," Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their ... hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”...
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information," Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their ... hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”...
