Blowout

Maddow turns from the Illegals back to Oklahoma, after the city’s sudden economic surge in 2008 and 2009, to the 2010 “earthquake swarm.” In the first half of 2010 alone, more than 20 3.0-magnitude quakes were recorded on monitoring devices, leaving local residents wondering what was happening. At the time, oil and gas drillers were pumping nearly 50 million barrels of water deep into the earth’s crust on a monthly basis. Looking for definitive answers, local reporters pursued expert opinions, most notably that of Austin Holland, a seismologist leading a team at the Oklahoma Geological Survey. Holland and his team were tasked with monitoring “induced seismic activity, AKA man-made earthquakes” (136). When asked directly about the connection between the enormous amount of hydraulic fracking in the area and the earthquakes, Holland could not give a definite answer. The link between the two, at least at the time, was not altogether evident.

Meanwhile, the saga of Aubrey McClendon continues. His wealth and extravagance were still rising despite growing skepticism and public suspicions about fracking. The Oklahoma City earthquakes were just an inexplicable phenomenon, with no direct cause, which was good news for McClendon and Chesapeake. Drillers such as Chesapeake were drilling slickwater, a chemically contaminated mixture of water-based liquid that contains NORM (naturally occurring radioactive material), by the millions of barrels deep into the ground to loosen deposits of natural gas. The consequences of this hydraulic fracking were unknown, which for now meant that Aubrey McClendon wasn’t going anywhere or changing anything.

The saga of the Oklahoma earthquake swarms continues, as Austin Holland worked 80-hour weeks in hopes of discovering the root cause of the strange phenomenon, “trying to keep up with the cascade of data from the cascade of seismic events in Oklahoma” (158). Just as Holland was buried in research, a 4.8 foreshock followed by a 5.7 earthquake hit the city of Prague, Oklahoma, the most powerful earthquake ever registered in the state. Finally, Austin Holland “had a pretty clear notion about a likely cause of the single most powerful earthquake in Oklahoma history” (159). Oil and gas frackers were pummeling disposal wells, which ultimately increased pressure near fault lines that had remained largely undisturbed up to that point. Fracking and its environmental impacts took center stage like never before, but now the effects were turning things up a notch in terms of danger. A true scientist at heart, Holland was still reluctant to confirm the link between fracking and the earthquakes, at least not until he had all the conclusive data he needed to make such a statement. Due to pressure from the real powers in Oklahoma—Big Oil and Gas—Holland’s bosses at the Oklahoma Geological Survey attributed the earthquake in Prague to “natural causes.” Eventually, Holland would state his opinion more clearly, calling fracking an “ultrahazardous activity.” By then he had left Oklahoma, and there was no one left in the state willing to challenge the titans of oil and gas.