Frackquake

Here in California—where we await the Big Earthquake with the kind of detached wonderment reserved for, oh, the end of the Mayan calendar—one has to wonder a tad about fracking.

Fracking—the controversial process of extracting oil and gas through high-pressure injection of water, sand and chemicals into deep underground wells—is coming to Sacramento. And aside from the demonstrated risks to water and air quality, a different concern about fracking has recently captured public attention.

In Ohio, Arkansas, Oklahoma and England, links between fracking and earthquakes have come into question, reports The New York Times last month. The science isn’t rock solid, but Arkansas has shut down at least one “disposal well” in response to the local quakes, with three others closing voluntarily. Earthquakes in that region “declined substantially,” according to NYT. A study in England concluded that two quakes near Blackpool were related to a fracking well.

Here, in a region of crumbling levees and the capacity for some spectacular flooding, is there any reason to encourage any more seismic activity?

Then again, maybe Ruthie should lighten up. On the website for Venoco (the company that will conduct 20 “fracks” in the Sacramento Basin), there’s an educational activity to get kids learning something of the energy biz, using cupcakes as a coastal drillsite:

“Make cupcakes in three or more layers (white, chocolate and yellow cake), hiding one M&M within. Bake and decorate the cupcakes with blue icing (representing water) and green sprinkles (representing land/plants). Give each student a cupcake and a clear plastic straw. Use the straw to drill for oil (M&M), slowly pushing the straw straight down into the cupcake. When the straw is removed, there will be a core sample of the layers. How many students struck oil?”

Perhaps the schoolroom exercise should depict Sacramento, not Santa Barbara. If so, it needs a new ending:

Give each student a cupcake, a plastic straw and a glass of water. Fill your cheeks with water, little children! Insert plastic straw into cupcake! Now, blow the water out into the cupcake as hard as you can! Oh no! The cupcake explodes! Oh no! The desk is shaking! Oh no! The desk just fell over on little Evan! Call the school nurse! Bahoohga! Bahoohga!

Teach your children well, eh?