Here's some shocking, earth-rattling news.
Yesterday, through interviews, open records requests and something called "research," Energy Wire released a somewhat terrifying report that exposes how the Oklahoma political elite, energy industry and Oklahoma Geological Survey have conspired together to mislead the public on what's causing the earthquake outbreak.
Okay, I guess that’s not really shocking or earth-rattling news. If you read this site, or have a condition called “common sense,” you’re probably aware that our state government wasn’t giving us the whole story on earthquakes and their links to the energy industry, but I guess it is good to finally know that our suspicions are justified.
Via Energy Wire:
Oklahoma's state scientists have suspected for years that oil and gas operations in the state were causing a swarm of earthquakes, but in public they rejected such a connection.
When the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) did cautiously agree with other scientists about such a link, emails obtained by EnergyWire show the state seismologist was called into meetings with his boss, University of Oklahoma President David Boren, and oil executives "concerned" about the acknowledgement.
One of the oilmen was Continental Resources Chairman Harold Hamm, a leading donor to the university.
The seismologist, Austin Holland, told a senior U.S. Geological Survey official that as far back as 2010, OGS officials believed an earthquake swarm near Oklahoma City might have been triggered by the "Hunton dewatering," an oil and gas project east of the city.
"Since early 2010 we have recognized the potential for the Jones earthquake swarm to be due to the Hunton dewatering," Holland wrote to USGS science adviser Bill Leith in 2013. "But until we can demonstrate that scientifically or not we were not going to discuss that publicly.”
Instead, he pointed to changing lake levels.