I was pleased to note that our new Assemblymember, Richard Bloom, has proposed legislation to limit and regulate hydraulic fracking by oil producers. [“Bloom introduces anti-fracking bill,” published March 27]
Besides environmental and water use issues, there is growing evidence that pressurized deep disposal wells used by the oil industry cause earthquakes. This problem has been under study for decades, going back to a series of unexpected earthquakes in Denver, Colo., in the 1960s. I lived there at that time and my family and I experienced three significant quakes. Soon, allegations arose blaming the seismic activity on highly pressurized deep disposal wells at the Army’s chemical weapons manufacturing base at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal, just east of Denver.
The lethal properties of waste from the manufacturing process called for deep disposal. The Army and the contractors denied any connection. After political pressure the disposal process was stopped and, what do you know, the quakes stopped after a short time.
In the past decade similar questions have been raised about quakes in previously seismically quiet areas such as the Netherlands, Ohio, Southern Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. All of these seismic activities have happened very near to oil production using pressurized deep wells for disposal of toxic waste from oil and gas fracking wells.
After the Ohio quakes, Governor Kasich, not known as a liberal environmentalist, reportedly issued an executive order requiring well operators to conduct seismic studies before the state will issue well permits, making Ohio the only state, so far, to make such a requirement.
With our long history of killer quakes, California must not delay action to regulate new well drilling and especially to require deep disposal wells to be seismically safe. In the interim a moratorium on such wells should be imposed.
Mr. Bloom’s proposed legislation is a good step in the right direction.
Ralph H. Erickson