Posted on 07/01/2015 7:28:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
If you read the title there’s not much more of an intro to do, really. Let’s just get to the case.
Oklahoma’s Supreme Court said New Dominion LLC can be sued for damage caused by an earthquake that a woman blames on disposal wells tied to fracking, in what may be the first such case to head to a jury trial.
Sandra Ladra sued New Dominion and Spess Oil Co. for injuries suffered to her knees and legs in November 2011, when a 5.0 magnitude earthquake struck near her home in central Oklahoma. She said the tremor caused the rock facing on her two-story fireplace and chimney to fall into the living room, where she was watching television with her family.
Oklahoma, a region not known for seismic activity, has experienced a rash of earthquakes since 2009, the same year area oil companies began using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to shatter deep rock layers to extract oil and gas. Fracked wells produce large quantities of wastewater, which drilling companies inject into ultra-deep disposal wells, which critics blame for causing earthquakes.
I’m going to start off here by saying something which may surprise some long time readers. The plaintiff in this case, as well as in many of the less hyperbolic complaints from opponents of domestic energy, actually has a point. I’ll confess, when I first heard some of the stories hitting the energy related media a few years back about fracking causing earthquakes, originally in Ohio and Texas, I was.. skeptical, to put it kindly. To be less kind, I was ready to write these people off as loons. But we’re dealing with science here and we have to keep an open mind. And as it turned out, there is some basis in fact for what’s been going on. Deep drilling, where you are fracturing a lot of substructure and allowing the land above it to press down and settle, can actually cause low level disturbances which are very similar to earthquakes. (Okay… to be fair, I suppose they actually are earthquakes since the Earth is quaking.) And I’m one of those boring people who receive regular industry updates on all of these related subjects and the facts are what they are.
But at the same time, I also agree with industry experts who arrive at the same conclusion as the US Geological Survey (USGS) from the Department of the Interior. They understand that our ability to generate earthquakes – even if we were trying – pales in comparison to the shifting of tectonic plates. The quakes which drilling disruptions cause tend to be small scale events at best.
To produce natural gas from shale formations, it is necessary to increase the interconnectedness of the pore space (permeability) of the shale so that the gas can flow through the rock mass and be extracted through production wells. This is usually done by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). Fracking causes extremely small earthquakes, but they are almost always too small to be a safety concern. In addition to natural gas, fracking fluids and salt water trapped in the same formation as the gas are returned to the surface. These wastewaters are frequently disposed of by injection into deep wells. The injection of wastewater and salt water into the subsurface can cause earthquakes that are large enough to be felt and may cause damage.
Unfortunately, as even the foremost experts in the field will tell you, seismology and the study of the Earth’s interior is still a very inexact science at best. Plenty of theories are out there and the science continues to advance, but earthquakes remain something of a mystery. (Some have speculated that one seismic event can cause a slow motion cascade of earthquakes, but you can’t really duplicate it.) But returning to the question at hand, it seems that extensive drilling can at least cause small quakes, usually below a 3.0 on the Richter scale. That 5.0 in Oklahoma was a surprisingly large one (though not in comparison to the really big rumblers) and is worth studying. But was it waiting to happen anyway?
You probably don’t think of Missouri as earthquake country either, but it was the site of one of the biggest quakes in the recorded history of the continental United States. (Of course, in 1811 there wasn’t much man made stuff to fall down.) The Earth is a complicated piece of machinery.
Still, there seems to be a connection. The industry is already looking at these questions and they may wind up needing to change liquid injection methods to shore up subsurface shifting. Who knows? And as for this case, I can sympathize with the woman who brought the suit. Personally I think the companies should cover her medical costs and repair her fireplace. Heck.. it’s the energy industry. Buy her a new house. But it’s also no reason for anti-energy activists to tie a flag on this hill and say it’s a reason to stop drilling.
By extension of this logic I can sue auto manufacturers and utility companies for causing the drought in CA (assuming you use what the whore scientists say).
Earthquakes happen all the time and are part of the natural process. If you don’t like earthquakes, get out of Oklahoma. Oklahoma is preventing these alarmists from messing with fracking.
Of course, the burden of the proof rests squarely on the accuser.
The earlier article specifically said the practice being sued over was not fracking. I guess the not fracking was done by a fracking company?
Oklahoma is going insane lately....take down 10 commandments and now suing a tracking company for earthquakes. Oklahoma used to be conservatives. I guess with all the immigrants going into the state, it is turning purple at best. It is disappointing to see Oklahoma, Virginia, and North Carolina slowly turning to the dark side.
DISCLOSURE:
I am presently drilling two wells not far from the area of this suit. I’m always amused when people from other areas (Jazz Shaw) offer opinions and write stories about topics on which they are ignorant. Yes, the burden of proof will be on the Plaintiff.
I would not want to be her lawyer in Lincoln County.
Fracking is not a new procedure. It’s been around since 1862. You read that right, 1862. Civil War. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-Real-History-Of-Fracking.html But now environmentalists are chasing another spurious theory to stop drilling. Good luck with that. W/sarcasm
Gwjack
P.S. I’m fracking the “dickens” out of these two wells. The landowners approve.
The anti fracking crowd won’t stop until it goes the way of coal.
The fact it’s taken seriously is cause for concern in itself. Remember, there is no longer a rule of law.
With today’s courts someone could sue for too many craters on the moon make them depressed, and given the right judge, they’ll win. Taxpayers pay, of course.
Fracking most likely eliminates hugh earthquakes by possibly creating the smaller ones (if) and relieving the tension in the rock and preventing buildup to the major quakes.
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If "the practice being sued over" is what's causing the earthquakes, then that would be correct. That process is called "tectonic drift". I'd expect quite a tale is involved in explaining how this oil company is managing to accomplish that.
[[Yes, the burden of proof will be on the Plaintiff.]]
Since when? The left have claimed man is ‘almost entirely responsible for global climate change, and the FACT si that the CO2 % in the atmosphere due to man iss only 0.00137%- The left have ABSOLUTELY NO PROOF that that small amount is causing the climate change (and infact, it is impossible for such a small amount to cause it), Yet they are writing laws to reduce CO2 as we speak
Courts these days don’t give a rats rearend about facts and science anymore- they rule based on perception and public opinion- as we’ve just seen with the two asinine Supreme court rulings in recent weeks
Our Nation is on so many roads to the shitter. Everyone seems to be going insane................
Real math and science applied to real geology is going to be very, very difficult to obtain to present. So throw that out and ride the wave of rumors and fears. Those pictures swirling around in your head are more real than physical evidence and sworn testimony from now on anyways. (SCOTUS precedent)
You can sue anyone for anything. Prove it.
When we finally come to our senses and give the enviro-weenies the choice to leave or shut up, the coal will still be there.
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