Can you put a price on well-being? Oklahoma seems to have done just that, as the state continues to engage in hydrofracking for financial profit, despite increasing evidence of environmental and health hazards.
Last year, according to a new state report, Oklahoma had at least 5,415 earthquakes, with 585 of them of magnitude-3 or greater. This stands in stark contrast to the 109 magnitude-3 quakes the state experienced in 2013 according to the Oklahoma Geologic Survey.
Scientists Say Source of Quakes is Fracking
Despite the astronomical increase in seismic activity, state scientists stop short of blaming fracking for all earthquakes in Oklahoma. Federal scientists, on the other hand, are quick to link fracking to the increased quakes:
“Large areas of the United States that used to experience few or no earthquakes have, in recent years, experienced a remarkable increase in earthquake activity that has caused considerable public concern as well as damage to structures,” federal scientists wrote in a report issued last month… This rise in seismic activity, especially in the central United States, is not the result of natural processes… Deep injection of wastewater is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes and the corresponding increase in seismic hazard in the central U.S.”
Bullied into Silence by Energy Industry
The reluctance of state government officials in Oklahoma to link earthquakes to fracking appears to be as a result of industry pressure to keep silent on the issue. Newly-obtained emails reveal that Oklahoma geologists were pressured by oil industry leaders not to push on with their assessments of possible links between earthquakes in the state and fracking.
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