That’s Fracking Enough ! Regulators Shut Down Frackquake Well

Chad Devereaux examines bricks that fell from three sides of his in-laws home in Sparks, Okla., following two earthquakes that hit the area in less than 24 hours in 2011. 

That’s Fracking Enough ! Regulators Shut Down Frackquake Well

 

by Chip Northrup February 4, 2015     nofrackingway
 
After a whopping 4.1 earthquake on Friday, even Oklahoma regulators were finally fracking fed up. And they ordered the culprit – a frack waste disposal well – shut down. To bring a little piece and quiet to the prairie. And allow the neighbors time to shore up their walls, file their insurance claims and call their lawyers.

How many cracked walls, cave-ins, busted water lines and nervous nights do you endure before you’re finally fracking fed up with frackquakes ? Don’t get mad. Get even. Sue the frackers, sue their contractors and sue their fracking lawyers. What the frack are you waiting on ? 

video at site

State Orders Waste Well Closed After Frackquake

The order follows a magnitude-4.1 earthquake on Friday.

Coming Sunday: Quake Debate

On Sunday, the Tulsa World begins a three-part series on Oklahoma’s increase in earthquakes. Stories will focus on concerns of residents in quake-prone areas, how public officials are responding to the problem and what scientists say about earthquakes and wastewater injection wells.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015   Updated: 12:44 pm, Wed Feb 4, 2015.

By ZIVA BRANSTETTER World Enterprise Editor |12 comments

Staff at the Oklahoma Corporation Commission directed that an injection well operated by SandRidge Energy be shut down Tuesday due to continuing earthquakes in Alfalfa County near the Kansas border.

The well is the second active wastewater injection well directed to “shut in” or halt operations by the agency since it began a new monitoring system in 2013.

Matt Skinner, a spokesman for the commission, said agency staff issued the directive Tuesday morning due to a magnitude-4.1 earthquake recorded in the area Friday. The well is just west of the Alfalfa County town of Cherokee.

“They were operating under a ‘yellow light’ permit with language that said shut in if there’s any seismic activity,” Skinner said.

Injection wells are used to dispose of wastewater, laden with salt and toxic chemicals, produced from oil and gas wells. The state has about 3,200 active injection wells that disposed of a combined 1.1 billion barrels of wastewater in 2013.

Due to a huge increase in earthquakes in recent years, the Corporation Commission began using a “traffic light” system in December 2013.

Under the system, wells within a six-mile radius of a magnitude-4.0 earthquake are placed under operating restrictions. If additional earthquakes occur within six miles of an active well in that area, the commission can order the operator to halt injection while more information is gathered....   more here