Saturn Oil & Gas and Westbrick Energy want to frac near and under Brazeau Dam (opposed by TransAlta), which is in the area of this new earthquake, 93km SSE of Edson. There is waste injection, frac’ing and EOR in the area.
Of course AER has not listed this new 4.1M quake on their Earthquake Dashboard, in their usual “World-Class” non regulating, fraudulent, cover-up, frac-harm enabling, 100% funded by industry style.
Comment by Annie_fiftyseven to a 2019 Tyee article by Andrew Nikiforuk:
Meanwhile, Aug 8, 2024 in the USA, another super shallow quake, 3.6M, with this felt report:
10726 208th Street Blanchard, Oklahoma 73010 (1.5 km SW of epicenter) [Map] / Moderate shaking (MMI V) / horizontal (sideways) swinging / 20-30 s :
That’s some scary shit right there lol. My whole house shook, shit fell off the walls and it sounded like and explosion or something had hit our house.
… The quake had a very shallow depth of 2.7 km (1.7 mi) and was felt widely in the area
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93km SSE from Edson puts the 4.1M quake near Brazeau Dam. Above from Google Maps
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@Kathy_Edm:
Earthquake near Edson, wildland fires consuming all areas of province. Hell visited upon #Alberta #UCP @ABDanielleSmith @rebeccakschulz push hard for more #oilandgas development, ignore environmental degradation. Killing us Danielle
@cessie172:
Earthquake around Edson
@wmc1988:
4.1 Magnitude earthquake – 93 km SSE of Edson, Ab
Earthquake Details (2024-07-24) (http://nrcan.gc.ca/)
https://www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/recent/2024/20240724.2139/index-en.php
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/9509422/mag4quake-Jul-24-2024-Alberta-Canada.html
Mag. 4.2 earthquake – Canada: 42 km N of Big Horn 144A, AB, on Wednesday, Jul 24, 2024, at 03:39 pm (Edmonton time) …
A moderate magnitude 4.2 earthquake hit 203 km (126 mi) away from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in the early afternoon of Wednesday, Jul 24, 2024 at 3.39 pm local time (America/Edmonton GMT -6). The quake had a very shallow depth of 1 km (0.6 mi)….
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes/quake-info/9509422/mag4quake-Jul-24-2024-Alberta-Canada.html#reportsSection
[Felt at] … Quesnel, Cariboo Regional District, British Columbia (423.9 km W of epicenter)…
Very weak shaking (MMI II)….
Quesnel, British Columbia
(Pop.: 13,788)
423 km (263 mi) W of epicenter
II: Very weak shaking
Above snap from Earthquakes Canada
@Tcamboss:
“The Fox Creek area and its fracking-caused quakes have long been the focus of researchers and regulators in Alberta.”
NOW DO THE AREA AROUND BRAZEAU DAM.
@LawyerBuchanan Jan 9, 2024:
According to the most recent information I have, this matter is scheduled to go to trial next month.
The legal dynamics of the dispute are unusual.
It’s an attempt to force the government to regulate in a certain way. The courts are loathe to do that, but the stakes are high.
The AER is responsible for determining applications for oil and gas exploration. Energy companies have applied to AER for permission to begin fracking near the dam.
Fracking-induced seismic events are a thing, though. In 2016, the government sponsored an expert report.
The report concluded that fracking within 5 km created an unacceptable risk to the dam infrastructure.
Initially, the government recommended holding the Brazeau fracking applications in abeyance pending a Province-wide policy review.
Later, however, the government decided that the review couldn’t be completed in a timely manner, so told AER to go ahead and hear the applications.
This precipitated the court action.
In short, TransAlta argues that its contract with the government requires the government to protect its operations from disruption by oil and gas exploration – and that this obligation extends to preventing fracking in the area.
How corrupt! A corporation gets Alberta gov’t protection from frac’ers, but not communities and ordinary Albertans.
The kind of policy being sought by TransAlta is…well, sensible.
While the government’s argument on the facts is basically, “Look at these contrarian ‘experts’ who disagree with our own report!”, the consequences of compromising a dam are serious enough to warrant caution.
Particularly in light of the 2016 report, nobody would blink if the government were to prohibit fracking within the 5km zone, or to add fracking to a list of water-quality-affecting activities that require Ministerial approval, or to tell AER to give serious weight to seismicity.
These would all be responsible policy, reasonably demanded of a reasonable government by a reasonable electorate.
However, the Albertan electorate, in its infinite wisdom, elected oil and gas lobbyists to government.
Asking the courts to force the government to make policy is a bit of a Hail Mary play. It’s not something the courts usually do, and for good reason: That’s the job of voters, not judges.
Refer also to:
2022:
@valhallacap:
What the Frack?
Calgary’s @TransAlta is suing @YourAlberta and the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in a bid to prevent #oilandgas companies from #fracking near its largest #hydroelectric dam, Brazeau power plant, near Drayton Valley in central Alberta.
@redsealsteamer:
Brazeau Dam fracking and earthquakes??? It’s a matter of time.
https://earthquaketrack.com/ca-01-fox-cree
2019:
2019 Nikiforuk: Alberta Imposes New Frac’ing Restrictions Near Brazeau Dam after Quakes As expected, the new restrictions aren’t working to prevent quakes near the dam. No wonder AER is not listing this new 4.1M quake on their quake dashboard. Cowardly corrupt fuckers.
…
Last week, the industry-funded regulator issued an order restricting fracking activity near TransAlta’s Brazeau Dam located 55 kilometres southwest of the densely drilled Drayton Valley following a magnitude 4.3 earthquake in the region last March.
The exact cause of that earthquake is not known, but the oil and gas industry has previously rocked the region with tremors caused by wastewater injection or by gas extraction, which causes rock to fracture and collapse.
The regulator officially banned 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.
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.
A regulator spokesperson told The Tyee in an email that the agency “issued the order as a precaution to limit the potential for an induced earthquake to happen near the Brazeau Dam. There has been no induced seismicity within 25 kilometres of the Brazeau dam and no reported impacts to the public, infrastructure, or the environment.”
Before the new public order there was an agreement TransAlta, an electric power company, had arranged with several fracking firms, according to a report by journalist Ben Parfitt.
In 2016, Stacey Hatcher, a company spokesperson, told Parfitt that “TransAlta is concerned about the potential impact of fracking induced earthquakes and continues to work with the Alberta Energy Regulator, Alberta Environment and the oil and gas operators to ensure that hydrocarbon development occurs in a safe manner that doesn’t create unnecessary risk to existing infrastructure.”
TransAlta has maintained a seismic monitoring program to protect its Alberta hydro dams from fracking operations since 2013.
… Gail Atkinson, Canada’s top earthquake hazard expert, called Alberta’s restrictions “a significant development” but said she couldn’t comment further because she serves as a consultant to TransAlta.
But the University of Western Ontario researcher pointed out that she recommended in 2017 that governments ban all fluid injection including hydraulic fracturing within a five-kilometre radius of critical infrastructure (cities, dams, gas storage areas) and maintain a comprehensive seismic monitoring program up to 25 kilometres away to detect anything unexpected and allow for a proactive response.Is it proactive for AER to exclude this new 4.1M quake near TransAlta’s Brazeau Dam from their quake dashboard? Why wasn’t this quake front page news on all Canadian mainstream media? Oh right, our media is mostly owned now by American pro polluter media corps.
… The fracking industry also delivered a shocking jolt to central Alberta earlier this year when a fracking operation owned by Vesta Energy near Sylvan Lake likely triggered a magnitude 4.6 tremor.
That event rattled hundreds of homes west of Red Deer and temporarily knocked out power for 5,000 people.
It’s not the first time the industry has shut down electrical facilities. In 2014, a magnitude 3.9 earthquake near Rocky Mountain House forced a nearby gas plant to shut down and flare off gas. Several hundred people lost their power for a prolonged period.
That quake, says Atkinson, was likely caused by the long-term extraction of natural gas in the region or by wastewater injection.
As a result of the Vesta quake, which alarmed hundreds of Albertans, the Alberta Energy Regulator issued new orders last month forcing operators near Red Deer to shut down their operations if they trigger seismic events greater than a magnitude of 3.0.
Until that order, the regulator only managed fracking operations in the Fox Creek area, where industry has set off hundreds of tremors, including some of the largest recorded earthquakes ever set off by industry outside of China.
Fracking causes earthquakes by injecting highly pressurized streams of water and chemicals at depths of one to two kilometres where the earth’s rock is geologically unstable.
Since the advent of fracking nearly a decade ago, the industry has caused small to moderate magnitude quakes in Ohio, Oklahoma, Arkansas, British Columbia and Alberta, changing seismic patterns and causing alarm or damage in areas not prone to large tremors.
The quakes, which have lowered property values in Oklahoma, garnered much public protest and robust scientific attention.
In a recent presentation on industry-made quakes in Alberta, hydrogeologist Ian Grant raised concerns about the “impact on social licence,” the need for better hazard mapping, and continued seismic monitoring. He also warned that the industry might face restrictions on the disposal of massive volumes of wastewater produced by oil and gas fracking due to increased seismic hazards.
This year a B.C. government report on fracking issued similar concerns and warned that industry had run out of formations to store seas of highly toxic wastewater underground that didn’t trigger earthquakes.
In an attempt to control fracking-induced quakes, both Alberta and B.C. regulators have set up “traffic light systems” in a few areas that signal operators to suspend operations once they have triggered a critical magnitude.
Yet a new study in Seismological Research Letters warns that “the precision to what an earthquake of a given strength can be prevented by a traffic light system has more limitations than typically assumed.”
One of Canada’s foremost experts on earthquake hazards recently told an audience of Calgary engineers that earthquakes triggered by hydraulic fracturing can exceed “what the natural hazard was in the first place” and pose risks to infrastructure only built to withstand natural earthquake hazards.
As well, earthquakes induced by fracking can produce more damaging ground motion at lower magnitudes than natural quakes due to their shallowness, said Gail Atkinson, the NSERC/TransAlta/Nanometrics Industrial Research Chair in Hazards from Induced Seismicity at Ontario’s Western University.
Natural earthquakes have an average depth of 10 kilometres, whereas industry-made tremors are much shallower and closer to the ground surface where people can feel them more strongly.
Natural earthquakes typically cause structural damage in buildings at a magnitude of 5.0, Atkinson said. But earthquakes triggered by fracking could possibly cause damaging ground motions at magnitudes as low as 3.5 to 4.0, due to their shallowness.
Hydraulic fracturing intentionally creates hundreds of microseismic events by cracking deep or shallow hydrocarbon formations with high-fluid injections of water, sand and chemicals. But the technology, which can’t yet model where all the fractures will go, has activated faults and slips in Ohio, Oklahoma, England, British Columbia and Alberta, creating headline-making earthquakes in the last three years.
Man-made earthquakes may be “a hot topic now,” but they are not a new issue, Atkinson explained. …
2012: Investigation of Observed Seismicity in the Horn River Basin