Okay, so this isn’t an LGBT story at all. But I live in Fort Worth and they are drilling all over my neighborhood, so it is important to me.
Southern Methodist University and the University of Texas have released a report on a joint study they did saying that there is “a plausible connection” between drilling in the Barnett Shale for natural gas and a series of small earthquakes that rattled the Dallas-Fort Worth area from fall 2008 through last spring.
A second report is due out soon that will address quakes that happened in Cleburne, south of Fort Worth, during that same time period. There’s a lot of drilling going on there, too.
There were about a dozen earthquakes recorded in DFW, the largest reading a 3.3 on the Richter Scale. None caused any reported injuries or major damage. According to the study, there may have been as many as 11 more earthquakes too small for anyone to notice.
This story in the Houston Chronicle pointed out that since drilling in the area stopped, there have been no more earthquakes here.
Like I said, I know this isn’t really an “LGBT story.” But it sure could affect some LGBT people in this area (like me). And in light of the huge earthquakes that have devastated Haiti and Chile in recent weeks, I think it is something to take note of.
3 Comments
LGBT – What exactly do you mean by that?
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I live in north east Fort Worth and less than 1 mile from a drilling rig. I have experienced several earthquakes where I live. None before they started drilling and none after they started drilling. Only during the months there were drilling. One quake moved my refrigerator slightly.
The earthquakes are bad enough, but the worst part isn’t the earthquakes, but that the drilling may be dumping tons of harzardous chemicals into our water table and may be releasing the earth’s natural layer of radioactivity from lower drilling depths into the water table and into the air.
The clue here should be to look at the names of the companies running the wells. They are all small drilling companies that were formed just for the purpose of drilling in urban areas. The big guys (Exxon, BP, Chevron, Texaco, etc) don’t seem to want their names on it. My guess is that they can see a big cleanup mess in a few years, and they don’t want to have the pay for the cleanup. The big guys can buy hydrocarbons from the small guys. Then the small guys can just divvy up the money and bankrupt their companies and leave the taxpayers to pay for the cleanup.