My 2 Cents: Oilfield Waste Water Injected Into Ground Across Oklahoma

It's been widely accepted in the scientific community, at least, that energy companies pumping the salty water that comes up with oil and gas back into the earth has been triggering much of our recent seismic activity.

But how much water are we talking about?

I got to wondering about that, and when I saw an estimate of one billion barrels a year that didn't help me much get a grasp on the situation.

So I converted it to gallons, and with help of the Internet, converted that to acre/feet which just happens to be the way they measure lakes.

The estimated one billion barrels of oilfield waste water being injected back into the ground under Oklahoma is roughly the equivalent of five Arcadia Lakes you see here on the east side of Edmond, or the water in 10 Lake Overholsers, the reservoir in west Oklahoma City, and remember that amount of water is being pumped under ground each year.

And compounding the problem, all that water is usually pumped deeper than where it came from so as not to contaminate the oil and gas producing layer, it has to squeeze into the rock and that causes movement.

Hope that gives us a little clearer picture of what scientists say is happening with our earthquakes.

I'm Kelly Ogle and that's My 2 Cents.