{"id":46508,"date":"2019-06-03T14:04:16","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46508"},"modified":"2019-06-03T14:04:21","modified_gmt":"2019-06-03T19:04:21","slug":"alberta-imposes-new-fracking-restrictions-near-dam-after-quakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46508","title":{"rendered":"Alberta Imposes New Fracking Restrictions Near Dam after Quakes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2019\/06\/03\/Alberta-Imposes-New-Fracking-Restrictions-After-Quake\/\">Alberta Imposes New Fracking Restrictions Near Dam after Quakes<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Restrictions come as industry-related tremors have rattled nerves and raised concerns.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2015\/06\/10\/fracking-wellhead610px.jpg\" alt=\"Fracking well head\"\/><figcaption>Alberta\u2019s Energy Regulator has issued an order restricting fracking activity near a dam located southwest of the densely drilled Drayton Valley following a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in the region last March.&nbsp;Fracking photo by Joshua Doubek, Creative Commons license&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/3.0\/\">CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The regulator\u2019s new regulations follow a wave of tremors set off by Canada\u2019s oil and gas industry, as well as the release of major scientific papers documenting how fracking and other forms of fluid injection have caused devastating earthquakes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Such industry-triggered events, some as great as magnitude 5.7, have destroyed homes, caused landslides, and left taxpayers with millions of dollars of damage in Oklahoma, Korea and in China, where citizens have been&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thetyee.ca\/News\/2019\/03\/07\/Frack-Quakes-Alberta-Deaths-China\/\">killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Last week, the industry-funded regulator issued&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/aer.ca\/documents\/orders\/subsurface-orders\/SO6.pdf\">an order<\/a>&nbsp;restricting fracking activity near TransAlta\u2019s Brazeau Dam located 55 kilometres southwest of the densely drilled Drayton Valley following a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in the region last March.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The exact cause of that&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca\/recent\/2019\/20190310.1000\/index-en.php\">earthquake<\/a>&nbsp;is not known, but the oil and gas industry has previously rocked the region with tremors caused by wastewater injection or&nbsp;by gas extraction, which causes rock to fracture and collapse.<a href=\"http:\/\/support.thetyee.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The&nbsp;Tyee&nbsp;is&nbsp;supported by&nbsp;readers&nbsp;like&nbsp;you&nbsp;Join us and grow independent&nbsp;media in&nbsp;Canada<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The regulator officially&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aer.ca\/providing-information\/by-topic\/seismic-activity\/brazeau\">banned<\/a>&nbsp;fracking within five kilometres of the dam site in the deep Duvernay formation, and within three kilometres of the dam site in the shallower formations above the Duvernay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It also imposed requirements that any fracking operator in the three-to-five-kilometre zone that causes a magnitude 1.0 earthquake must now report the event to the regulator and cease operations totally if it triggers quakes greater than magnitude 2.5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alberta Imposes New Fracking Restrictions Near Dam after Quakes Restrictions come as industry-related tremors have rattled nerves and raised concerns. The regulator\u2019s new regulations follow a wave of tremors set off by Canada\u2019s oil and gas industry, as well as the release of major scientific papers documenting how fracking and other forms of fluid injection [&hellip;]<\/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":[1082,5549,222,331,412,23884],"class_list":["post-46508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-andrew-nikiforuk","tag-earthquakes","tag-fracking","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-thetyee-ca"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46508","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=46508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46509,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46508\/revisions\/46509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}