{"id":11491,"date":"2015-08-26T09:47:55","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T14:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11491"},"modified":"2015-08-26T09:47:55","modified_gmt":"2015-08-26T14:47:55","slug":"fracking-triggered-2014-earthquake-in-northeastern-b-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=11491","title":{"rendered":"Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C.<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n

Quake one of world’s largest ever triggered by hydraulic fracturing<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fracking\u00a0triggered a\u00a04.4-magnitude earthquake<\/a>\u00a0in northeastern B.C. last year, CBC News has learned,\u00a0making it\u00a0one of world’s\u00a0largest earthquakes\u00a0ever triggered by the controversial process.<\/p>\n

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission confirmed the cause of the earthquake in an email statement to CBC this week, saying\u00a0it was “triggered by fluid injection during hydraulic fracturing.”<\/p>\n

The 4.4-magnitude quake was felt in\u00a0Fort St. John and Fort Nelson\u00a0in August 2014.\u00a0It was preceded by a 3.8-magnitude earthquake in late July, also caused by fracking.<\/p>\n

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission told CBC that\u00a0several companies were doing hydraulic fracturing in the area at the time, and several more were\u00a0disposing of fracking waste.<\/p>\n

But the commission says it was Progress Energy’s operations that were “associated with triggering this event.”<\/p>\n

Hydraulic fracturing, often called fracking, is the process of injecting\u00a0water, sand and chemicals\u00a0at high pressure\u00a0deep underground to break rock\u00a0and free gas.<\/p>\n

Since the 2014 earthquake, Progress Energy has been ordered to reduce the volume of fracking fluid being used, and the company has complied, according to the commission.<\/p>\n

As well, new seismic equipment has been set up in the area. No new earthquakes have been\u00a0detected in the immediate area.<\/p>\n

Sign of things to come?<\/h2>\n

Progress Energy is owned by Petronas of Malaysia, which also owns Pacific NorthWest LNG, the firm planning to build a giant liquefied natural gas export facility near Prince Rupert, B.C.\u00a0supplied by gas fracked in northeastern B.C.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Matt Horn, with\u00a0clean energy advocate\u00a0the\u00a0Pembina Institute,\u00a0calls the significant earthquake “another warning sign for what could be down the road.<\/p>\n

“If B.C. goes down the LNG road in a big way, it’s really\u00a0important when we’re debating LNG proposals, we’re eyes wide open…. to both the benefits and impacts. Increased earthquakes is one of those impacts.”<\/p>\n

B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission declined a taped interview, providing only background information by email.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fracking triggered 2014 earthquake in northeastern B.C. Quake one of world’s largest ever triggered by hydraulic fracturing Fracking\u00a0triggered a\u00a04.4-magnitude earthquake\u00a0in northeastern B.C. last year, CBC News has learned,\u00a0making it\u00a0one of world’s\u00a0largest earthquakes\u00a0ever triggered by the controversial process. B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission confirmed the cause of the earthquake in an email statement to CBC this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[65,5818,94,3544,3000,221,331,412,8337],"class_list":["post-11491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-bc","tag-bc-oil-and-gas-commission","tag-british-columbia","tag-cbc","tag-cbc-news","tag-earthquake","tag-fracking","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-progress-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11492,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11491\/revisions\/11492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}