The study offers compelling reasons why the oil companies should be required to remove the waste water they have dumped into the ground. Either the fracking and water injection processes are causing the earthquakes or alternatively the oil companies are electing to inject waste in geologically unstable rock strata. If the latter, given the intensity of the quakes, what assurance could be provided that quake fractured rock wouldn’t allow the contaminated wastewater to migrate upward and contaminate ground water and soils. The oil companies devised the technology to inject their wastewater into the ground, so they ought to be able to figure out a way to get it out, clean it up and return it into surface water assets.
The study offers compelling reasons why the oil companies should be required to remove the waste water they have dumped into the ground. Either the fracking and water injection processes are causing the earthquakes or alternatively the oil companies are electing to inject waste in geologically unstable rock strata. If the latter, given the intensity of the quakes, what assurance could be provided that quake fractured rock wouldn’t allow the contaminated wastewater to migrate upward and contaminate ground water and soils. The oil companies devised the technology to inject their wastewater into the ground, so they ought to be able to figure out a way to get it out, clean it up and return it into surface water assets.