Boom times for Fracking's Toxic Wastewater Come to a Shaky End

[BernieforPres2016]

And Hillary Clinton can't bring herself to say this rape of the environment, which she has peddled around the world, should be banned.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/boom-times-frackings-toxic-wastewater-100009535.html

<For every barrel of oil produced in Oklahoma, drillers produce an average of about 10 barrels of wastewater. While other states tend to treat and recycle their oil and gas wastewater, Oklahoma has a long history of shooting it back down a hole in the ground—and forgetting about it.>

<Since 2009 the amount of waste​water disposed of in Oklahoma has increased 81 percent, to more than 1 billion barrels a year. The number of earthquakes measuring 3 or higher on the Richter scale has jumped from fewer that two to 900 in 2015. In the past year, OCC has imposed restrictions on hundreds of disposal wells, reducing the amount of water disposed underground statewide by a total of 1 million barrels a day. The actions appear to be helping in some areas. The number of earthquakes in central Oklahoma declined 27 percent from the first to the second half of 2015. “Until the earthquakes disappear, the threat level will continue,” says Matt Skinner, an OCC spokesman.

Along with lacking adequate resources to address the earthquakes (a year ago the OCC had just 1 seismologist dedicated to quakes) they have another problem on their hands: The quakes are moving, migrating across the state from east to west. In 2012, the most violent activity was southeast of Oklahoma City; today it’s in the northwestern part of the state. In a 30-minute period on Feb. 13, a trio of earthquakes registering as high as 5.1 rocked north­western Oklahoma and could be felt in seven states.

About 1,000 of Oklahoma’s 4,000 disposal wells are in the Arbuckle formation, a layer of limestone that stretches hundreds of miles across the state. The Arbuckle acts like a sponge, soaking up injected wastewater. Scientists believe that in some cases that water is increasing pressure along Oklahoma’s extensive fault lines, causing them to slip and setting off earthquakes. Blaming a particular well for a particular quake, though, is nearly impossible. “We don’t necessarily have a smoking gun that shows the mechanism of how that pressure transmits across fault lines,” says Jeremy Boak, director of the Oklahoma Geological Survey.>

This is what modern capitalism is about. Reap the short term profits, leave the rest of society to pick up the long term cost. The term for it that is "negative externalities". Bernie is fighting fracking and other types of crony capitalism with rampant negative externalities, such as Wall Street. Hillary will support these industries, or at worst look the other way, as long as she is cut in on the profits via paid speeches and contributions to her campaign, to the Clinton Foundation and to her SuperPacs.

[ViseGrip]

1. But Hillary said she wants to regulate it ....