Sentences with phrase «fracking wastewater injection»

Mike G, DeSmogBlogWaking Times After California state regulators shut down 11 fracking wastewater injection wells last July over concerns that the wastewater might have contaminated aquifers used for drinking water and farm irrigation, the EPA ordered a report within 60 days.

Not exact matches

Fracking is part of the problem, but the report states that most human - induced quakes are caused by the oil and gas industry's use of injection wells to dispose of wastewater - the contaminated liquid that gets pumped out of the well during oil and gas extraction.

In most cases, it is not hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) of oil - and gas - bearing rock that sets off tremors but the related process of wastewater injection.

Both fracking and wastewater injections can increase the fluid pressure in the natural pores and fractures in rock, or change the state of stress on existing faults, to produce earthquakes.

A study published today in Science explains how wastewater injection sites — areas where toxic water left over from oil drilling and fracking processes is injected into the ground between impermeable layers of rocks to avoid polluting freshwater — could be driving the sharp increase in the sometimes - disastrous earthquake events.

Past research has shown that processes such as wastewater injection at oil drilling and fracking sites throughout the state could induce a small number of earthquakes but scientists have never been able to specifically link some of the more distant or stronger earthquakes with these sometimes faraway wastewater wells.

Although it has long been known that the injection of wastewater into disposal wells can trigger earthquakes by increasing pore pressure and destabilizing fault lines, rarely has fracking itself been identified as the source of tremors.

The team also is seeking additional funding to begin monitoring groundwater wells near wastewater injection wells, where fracking brine is deposited after the wells are drilled.

Scientists suspected that the Arkansas earthquakes were triggered by the injection of approximately 94.5 million gallons of fracking wastewater into to nearby wells, which then made its way into the basement layer during a nine - month period.

Instead, the increased risk for seismicity is more strongly linked with the subsequent injection of the wastewater from fracking and other oil - extraction processes into massive disposal wells that are thousands of feet underground.

However, experts believe that the November 2011 earthquake and other events in Oklahoma — such as the drastic increase from six earthquakes between 2000 and 2008 to 850 earthquakes between January 2010 and March 2011 in Oklahoma County — point to a link between fracking - related activites, specifically wastewater injection, and seismic activity.

It was only after deep injection disposal wells used to house fracking's toxic wastewater went into operation that the earthquakes started.

A lifelong advocate for our coast, Williams championed required testing of groundwater before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing, which was included in California's regulations on fracking, and authored legislation to expand groundwater monitoring to other types of injection wells to protect underground sources of drinking water from oil and gas wastewater disposal.

The USGS concurs that fracking injection wells may be the cause of earth quakes up to mag 3: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/research/induced/ «The increase in seismicity has been found to coincide with the injection of wastewater in deep disposal wells in several locations, including Colorado, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Ohio.

Organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Environmental Integrity Project and some six others, want updated rules covering disposal of fracking wastewater in underground injection wells, which have been linked to river contamination most recently in West Virginia, and earthquakes in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, and California.

While the anti-fracking (well, the anti-fossil-fuel) crowd snarkily sought to blame hydraulic fracturing for the recent Oklahoma earthquake, the truth is that wastewater injection wells are the much more likely culprit — not fracking.

The suspected culprit is fracking — or more specific to this case, the three injection wells in the area, which inject «vast volumes of salty, chemical - laced wastewater» deep into the ground.