US workers change pipes at Consol Energy horizontal gas drilling rig
fracking (AFP)
A light earthquake shook the Dallas-Ft. Worth area of North Texas
on Saturday night, leaving no known damage or casualties but
stirring concern about the potential of the area’s oil and gas
fracking industry to generate seismic activity.
The magnitude 3.3 earthquake struck about 9:15 p.m. Central time
on Saturday, said Dale Grant, an geophysicist with the U.S.
Geological Survey.
The epicenter was near the border of the cities of Dallas and
Irving, near the site of the former Texas Stadium, where the Dallas
Cowboys football team played for nearly 40 years.
Comments on Twitter from the Dallas Ft. Worth area indicate that
the quake was felt across the region.
“We have not received any reports of damage, nor are we expecting
any,” Grant said.
Grant said earthquakes of that size are not uncommon in the
Barnett Shale Field of North Texas, near the area hit by Saturday’s
temblor.
Critics said the quake was a reminder of the threat posed by
hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The technique, pioneered in the
Barnett shale formation, is the driving force behind the U.S. energy
boom.
“We are guinea pigs in the middle of this fracking experiment.
Texas homes are built to withstand wind, not earthquakes,” Sharon
Wilson, an organizer for Earthworks, an advocacy group, said on
Sunday. “Who will pay for the damage to private property?”
Fracking involve the injection a mix of pressurized water, sand
and chemicals to unlock hydrocarbons from rock can trigger
earthquakes. Many environmental groups say the technique is
wasteful, polluting and noisy, but the industry says it is safe.
Even so, the Texas Oil & Gas Association, an industry lobby
group, concedes that the issue deserved more careful study.
“The oil and natural gas industry agrees that recent seismic
activity warrants robust investigation to determine the precise
location, impact and cause or causes of seismic events,” Todd
Staples, the association’s president, said in an email.
The city of Denton, about 40 miles (65 km) north of the Dallas
Ft. Worth area, earlier this month banned fracking in the city
limits, after activists complained that the process leads to
earthquakes.
(Reporting by Jim Forsyth in San Antonio, Texas; Writing By Frank
McGurty; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/11/fracking-blamed-for-saturdays-3-3-magnitude-earthquake-in-dallas-ft-worth-area/