A groundbreaking study published today in Seismological Research Letters has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") for oil and gas and earthquakes. 

"Hydraulic Fracturing and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin" confirms the horizontal drilling technique (which in essence creates an underground mini-earthquake to open up fissures for oil and gas extraction) is responsible for earthquakes, above and beyond what is already canonized in the scientific literature. We already knew that injecting fracking waste into underground wells can cause quakes. But now it's not just the injections wells, but the fracking procedure itself that can be linked to seismicity. 

The study focuses on an area in Canada known as the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), one of Canada's biggest shale basins and tight oil and gas producing regions.

The researchers "compared the relationship of 12,289 fracking wells and 1,236 wastewater disposal wells to magnitude 3 or larger earthquakes in an area of 454,000 square kilometers near the border between Alberta and British Columbia, between 1985 and 2015," explained a press release. They "found 39 hydraulic fracturing wells (0.3% of the total of fracking wells studied), and 17 wastewater disposal wells (1% of the disposal wells studied) that could be linked to earthquakes of magnitude 3 or larger."

If that sounds like a fairly small percentage, Atkinson and colleagues readily admit that is the case in the study. Yet they also write that it could portend worse things to come as more and more wells are fracked in the region.

"It is important to acknowledge that associated seismicity occurs for only a small proportion of hydraulic fracturing operations," they wrote, proceeding to cite another paper written in 2015 by lead author Gail Atkinson — a professor of earth sciences at the University of Western Ontario —  and colleagues on the impacts of induced seismicity. "However, considering that thousands of such wells are drilled every year in the WCSB, the implications for hazard are nevertheless significant, particularly if multiple operations are located in close proximity to critical infrastructure."

The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin uses less water during fracking operations than in places like the current mecca of frackquakes, Oklahoma. In the paper, the authors also conclude that the massive amount of wastewater incidents in the U.S. may cloak the impact fracking has had on induced seismicity in the central U.S., which calls for more scientific investigation.

"[I]t is possible that a higher-than-recognized fraction of induced earthquakes in the United States are linked to hydraulic fracturing, but their identification may be masked by more abundant wastewater-induced events," they explained.

One of their most important finds appears to be the definitive link the researchers found between fracking and earthquakes in the region, rather than the sheer number of quakes. They also found no link between the amount of fluid pumped into the ground during fracking and the size of the earthquake.

"More than 60% of these quakes are linked to hydraulic fracture, about 30-35% come from disposal wells, and only 5 to 10% of the earthquakes have a natural tectonic origin," said Atkinson in a press release. And "if there isn't any relationship between the maximum magnitude and the fluid disposal, then potentially one could trigger larger events if the fluid pressures find their way to a suitably stressed fault."

What's the big takeaway, then, according to the paper? Of course, a call for more investigation, but in the meantime they also call for more thoughtful public policy moving forward.

"The nature of the hazard from hydraulic fracturing has received less attention than that from wastewater disposal, but it is clearly of both regional and global importance," they wrote in the conclusion. "The likelihood of damaging earthquakes and their potential consequences needs to be carefully assessed when planning HF operations in this area."

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

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The Public Accountability Initiative (PAI) has published a timely "back to school" report concluding that "frackademia" is alive and well at U.S. universities. 

While only focusing on the people and money behind five recent studies, PAI's report sits within a much broader universe of research in its Frackademia Guide. The new report serves as an update of its February 2015 report titled, "Frackademia in Depth," a title poking fun at hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") front group Energy in Depth (which did not react kindly to its report).

As PAI points out in the new report's introduction, the results of many recent science studies (some funded by the industry) have tarnished the reputation the industry spends so much money aiming to keep shiny. These include studies on fracking's climate impacts and health impacts, environmental justice issues associated with fracking, among others.

Given that backdrop, the oil and gas industry has swept in and funded fresh studies whose outcomes were more favorable — aka "frackademia" — on topics ranging from fracking's groundwater impacts, environmental impacts and economics. 

Rick Berman, Tim Considine

Among the most compelling findings in the PAI investigation is that Rick "Dr. Evil" Berman, infamous for creating industry-funded front groups in many policy arenas via his consulting company Berman & Company, has gotten into the frackademia game.

The Berman connection becomes clear when investigating the men behind the curtain of a study published in September 2014 titled, “Economic and Environmental Impacts of Oil and Gas Development Offshore the Delmarva, Carolinas, and Georgia,” which makes the case for offshore drilling in the Atlantic. As PAI explained, it was funded by Interstate Policy Alliance, "a project of the Employment Policies Institute."

What's Employment Policies Institute? A Berman & Company front group.  

"Though Berman and Company does not disclose the identities of its clients, the firm and its network of front groups have recently begun attacking fracking opponents and climate change regulations, suggesting it has been retained by the oil and gas industry," explained PAI.

view this map on LittleSis

Just as important as Berman, in this case, was the author: Timothy Considine. Considine has been embroiled in other frackademia scandals, including a 2010 study eventually retracted and reissued by Penn State University after it was revealed that he didn't disclose its funder, the Marcellus Shale Coalition lobbying organization.

He's actually featured twice in the PAI report. The other recent Considine frackademia example came in the form of a study titled, “The Economics Impacts of the Proposed Natural Gas Severance Tax in Pennsylvania," funded by the American Petroleum Institute. 

That report predicted brutal impacts for Pennsylvania's economy if its legislature adopts a severance tax for those fracking in the state's Marcellus Shale. 

Harvard, Syracuse

Harvard Business School and Syracuse University also feature prominently in PAI's report. The Harvard Business School example, in particular, serves as almost a perfect case study of how frackademia works in action. 

“America’s Unconventional Energy Opportunity,” the title of Harvard's report published jointly with Boston Consulting Group in June 2015, was featured in an opinion article by The New York Times writer David Brooks and in an uncritical article distributed to newspaper wires worldwide by Reuters.  

Like a prominent 2013 Environmental Defense Fund-convened study on the climate change impacts of fracking, the steering committee of the Harvard study was a who's-who of people with industry ties. 

Image Credit: Public Accountability Initiative

As PAI pointed out, co-author "David Gee, a [Boston Consulting Group] managing partner, has worked for the energy industry for more than 30 years, with stints at Baker Hughes, PG&E, and AES Corporation."

Another co-author not mentioned in PAI's report is Michael Porter, a faculty member of the Harvard Business School and formerly of the Monitor Group, a prominent consulting firm that went out of business in November 2012. Monitor Group has been involved in undisclosed pay-for-play before, conducting de facto shadow public relations work for former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  

Energy in Depth also stars in PAI's report in the form of a Syracuse University study on fracking and groundwater contamination that served as a counter of sorts to earlier Duke University fracking groundwater contamination studies. 

That study was promoted by both EID and Natural Gas Now, the latter often featuring the work of Tom Shepstone, a former EID employee and current industry consultant. As it turns out, the study was covertly funded by Chesapeake Energy, though the co-authors claimed they had “no competing financial interest” in any entities potentially impacted by the study's results. 

Lead author Donald Siegel "had failed to disclose that, in addition to providing the data upon which his conclusions were based, oil and gas driller Chesapeake Energy had also funded the study and paid Siegel directly," wrote PAI.

"Further, one of Siegel’s co-authors, Bert Smith, is a former Chesapeake employee who now works for Enviro Clean, a firm that consults for Chesapeake Energy. While Smith’s employment at Enviro Clean was noted when the study was published, the fact that his employer works for Chesapeake Energy was not."

On at least one instance, PAI pointed out, Siegel actually wrote an article on EID's website.

Tobacco, Climate Denier Playbook

As highlighted many times in the report, journalists often take press releases from universities and write stories about these studies without following the money.

"Since the tobacco industry pioneered the use of compromised scientists to sow doubt about the harmful effects of smoking, corporations have employed a complex of industry-funded academic institutes, public relations outfits, lobbying firms, and independent consultants to provide seemingly independent support for their lines of business," explained PAI.

PAI has done a great public service by naming names and doing the work journalists all too often fail to do to reveal conflicts of interest.  

Photo Credit: Jannis Tobias Werner | Shutterstock

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Residents of the Northwest Territories are demanding environmental reviews be conducted before companies are permitted to ‘frack’ for oil in the NWT. Despite controversy in Canada and other countries around the effects fracking or hydraulic fracturing has on water and climate change, the NWT’s first fracking project was approved last October without an environmental assessment.

“We can’t let another fracking project dodge an environmental assessment,” says Lois Little of the Council of Canadians NWT chapter.

“There is a lot of international concern about the environmental and social impacts of fracking,” says Ben McDonald, spokesperson for Alternatives North, a social justice coalition in NWT. “The moratoriums on fracking in the U.S. and eastern Canada are in place for good reasons.”

The Council of Canadians, Alternatives North along with Ecology North have launched a petition calling on the NWT government to refer fracking projects to environmental assessments that include public hearings from now on. Signatures will be collected until March 7th when the petition will be delivered to the NWT legislative assembly. Two hundred and fifty NWT residents have signed the petition.

“A full, thorough environmental assessment would provide all levels of government with information on the possible impacts of fracking on the NWT and create a venue for all voices to be heard,” says Christine Wenman, a water management campaigner with Ecology North, an environmental organization based in Yellowknife.

NWT Canol shale oil play could rival Bakken shale

The central NWT region called the Sahtu is home to the Canol shale, a shale oil play that could rival the booming Bakken shale oil industry in North Dakota. Shale oil (not to be confused with oil shale) is oil locked in the pores of rock-like shale underground. The Sahtu itself is an area of pristine wilderness accessed by ice roads and many residents live off the land.

The Sahtu Region

The method commonly associated with shale gas development – fracking – is employed by industry to release the oil trapped in the shale. ‘Frack wells’ are drilled vertically between two hundred to two thousands meters to penetrate the shale and then horizontally through the shale up to three kilometers. Pressurized water laced with chemicals is shot down the well to break apart the shale and force the oil to the surface.

Improperly constructed or cracked frack wells have contaminated water tables with methane (natural gas is mainly methane) or fracking chemicals, some of which are toxic.

“No one has done any mapping locating the underground waterways or aquifers of the Sahtu. We are playing in the dark here,” Little told DeSmog Canada.

Many of the proposed fracking operations in the Sahtu would take place along the Mackenzie River, the main artery of the Mackenzie River Water Basin, one of the world’s largest watersheds and Canada's 'Serengeti.'

“An EA (environmental assessment) would be a sober second thought about fracking in NWT before its too late,” NWT MLA Bob Bromley told DeSmog Canada in an interview. Earlier this week Bromley expressed his suspicions that NWT government employees were being discouraged from signing the petition for environmental reviews of fracking projects.

Canadian oil and gas on pace to be No.1 contributor to climate change

“There is a fundamental problem in developing the Canol shale when we know the impact producing more greenhouse gases will have on climate change,” says Bromley.

Methane once unlocked from shale during fracking operations can escape into water tables and the atmosphere. If it makes it above ground, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas.

Over twenty year period methane has eighty-four times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide according the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) latest findings. This global warming potential is thirty-four times greater than carbon dioxide over one hundred years.

A DeSmog Canada exclusive revealed last year Canada is most likely already under reporting escaped methane emissions or fugitive emissions from the oil and gas sector. Even with these inaccuracies in calculating fugitive emissions Environment Canada projects the oil and gas sector will be Canada’s biggest contributor to global warming by 2030. Canada’s overall greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase 38% by 2030 as well.

Source: Canada's 6th National Report on Climate Change 2014

“Pursuing fossil fuels projects takes us in the wrong direction. Fossils fuels belong with the dinosaurs,” Bromley told DeSmog.

The Bakken shale oil industry in North Dakota burns off or flares around 30% of the natural gas byproduct that comes with fracking on the Bakken shale. An estimated $1 billion worth of natural gas was flared in 2012 alone. This is equivalent of adding one million more carbon dioxide emitting cars on the road.

Social impacts of fracking already emerging in the Sahtu 

Divisions are already emerging in the five Sahtu communities over developing the Canol shale. Sheila Karkagie of Tulita in the Sahtu received a death threat last January for her strong stance against fracking.

“I was scared and I was hurt,” Sheila Karkagie told CBC in an interview about the threat. “I'm fighting for my dad's land, because this is his land, his trap lines, his everything; our means of living, our backyard, our everything!”

The death threat came via telephone after Karkagie publicly stated past members of the Tulita Land and Financial Board are in conflict of interest for approving ConocoPhillips fracking project – NWT’s first fracking project – and then accepting contracts with oil and gas companies afterwards.

“We are seeing divisiveness in communities where it seldom existed before,” says NWT MLA Bromley.

“The lack of a thorough public process on the issue is causing stress, anxiety and pitting people against each other in the Sahtu communities,” Lois Little of the Council of Canadians told DeSmog. The Council of Canadians, one of the Canada’s foremost water advocacy groups, released a ‘Fractivist Toolkit’ earlier this month to assist Canadians confronting fracking in their communities.

The petition for environmental assessments of fracking projects in NWT can be found on the NWT legislative assembly’s website:

http://epetition.lant.public-i.tv/epetition_core/community/petition/2614

Image Credit: Transnational Institute, Council of Canadians, Environment Canada

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