If you asked me last week what I think when I hear the word Oklahoma I’d say: State in the mid-West and a hit musical by Roger and Hammerstein.

This week, on the other hand, the dominant association to the word Oklahoma is earthquakes. Maybe I’m reading too much for my own good. But the story about what’s happening in Oklahoma really exemplifies my quest as to what we as a nation should resolve for the New Year: listening to science – and act on what we learn –  to avoid disaster.

The links below provide details, but here is the rough version: By the end of 2014, 567 earthquakes of at least magnitude 3.0 were recorded in Oklahoma, more than the number of 3.0+ magnitude earthquakes from the previous 30 years combined. In 2014, there were over twice as many earthquakes recorded in Oklahoma as in California, making Oklahoma the most seismically active state in the contiguous United States by a substantial margin. In the last two years that number increased even more as did the magnitude of the quakes: the largest one recorded as 5.8.

The attached article spells out the consequences if we reach the magnitude of 6 on the Richter Scale in particularly sensitive locations, like Cushing, OK where 14 major oil pipelines intersect and hundreds of tanks holding 60 million barrels of unrefined oil are sitting targets (tanks are not subject to federal safety regulations, wouldn’t you know it.)

And I quote: if there were a major one that broke pipelines and split, say, half those tanks, the environmental disaster would make the Exxon Valdez spill of 260,000 barrels of oil near the Alaska coast nearly three decades ago look like the results of a kid knocking over her uncovered juice cup.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/14/1698565/-A-big-earthquake-could-turn-Cushing-Oklahoma-into-one-of-the-worst-oil-related-eco-disasters-ever

So what do we think causes this strange increase in earthquakes?

In one word: greed, in multiple forms.

Large companies drill for oil and gas in Oklahoma, making tons of money where labor is cheap and regulations scarce. The drilling process involves a lot of waste water that needs to be disposed of. For that purpose they create deep disposal wells even below the levels of oil and gas extraction and then pump the brine – now a mix of water and chemicals – into those wells. The EPA says there are about 40,000 disposal wells nationwide. The water that hits lower strata deep in the earth can set off seismic activity – after years of denial now even State regulatory agencies acknowledge the causality. After the 2016 earthquakes you saw 37 wells shut down because they were deemed too risky. Which is, of course a drop in the bucket.

That water could be recycled. People do it all over the States, but not in Oklahoma. The oil companies claim: “underground wastewater disposal is currently the safest and most cost-effective way to dispose of produced water.” Drillers also argue that recycling is more expensive, in part because they must pay to transport the wastewater to recycling facilities. But they promise they’ll check for safety gaps more frequently…..

The New Yorker story below is an in-depth description of what is happening. It also mentions that much of what you see when driving through Oklahoma is starlings and cows, which prompted the photo selection. And a goose, because they are everywhere, and I like them…..

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/13/weather-underground

We all know the writing on the wall, but we do not act in time – we should change that, as a country, putting our citizens’ safety before the profit garnered by the energy giants. And this concludes our New Year’s resolution – l’Shana Tovah!

Earthquake Map