Madison Harvey - Frequent Earthquakes in Oklahoma

Summary:  Earthquakes in Oklahoma have become a normal occurrence at this point in time. They’ve been happening so much people are getting used to them but the damage is becoming excessive.  Since the start of this month the people in Oklahoma have experienced 46 earthquakes, large and small and are hard to ignore.  A 5.0-magnitude earthquake struck 25 miles west of Cushing, Oklahoma on November 6 which was the second large-scale earthquake to hit Oklahoma in the past few months.  It damaged several buildings and the older buildings were damaged the worst.  Scientists believe the causes are due to fracking.  They say the main problem is the large amounts of wastewater unearthed in the process.  This salty wastewater is being dumped into wells dug thousands of feet below the surface and the pressure is wreaking havoc on Oklahoma’s fault lines.  The Oklahoma Geological Survey concluded last year it was “very likely” that most of the earthquakes were cause by the process.  In 2013 there were 109 earthquakes recorded and within two years that number jumped to 907.  Before 2008 they would have 1.5 quakes per year and now they are having 2.5 per day.  Just last month a quake matched an all-time record of 5.6.

Analysis:  This article was written by Amanda Sakuma at NBC News on November 14, 2016 to inform the reader about this very important matter.  It is apparent that the country has been experiencing these problems around the country where fracking has been occurring and there is no denying it is the problem.  Scientists are telling us but the oil companies have so much control that it is hard to stop.  There are jobs created from this practice and many people care more about jobs than the environment so they ignore the data from the scientist.  I see other problems around the country caused from fracking, so this has to stop eventually.  I believe we need to concentrate on clean energy such as solar.