We live in a litigious society. Engineering and environmental
geologists are no strangers to the legal system. They frequently deal
with issues relating to geologic hazards such as active faults and
unstable ground, the release of contaminants into the environment and
numerous other circumstances. But for the most part, geoscientists tend
to avoid legal battles. Is that changing?
In the last couple of years, several events have brought geologists
into new legal territory. Geologists have recently been accused of
potentially inducing earthquakes, of not predicting natural hazards, of
potentially adversely impacting water quality, of spying and of engaging
in indelicate e-mail discussions and alleged misdealings with climate
change data.
Many of L'Aquila's buildings were reduced to rubble during the April 6 earthquake
(Credit: INGV)
Are geologists at fault?
On more than one occasion in the pursuit of energy, geologists have
been cited for inducing earthquakes. First was a case of enhanced
geothermal development in Switzerland that came to a head last December.
Enhanced geothermal essentially fractures bedrock and then circulates
water through the cracks to produce steam, which in turn is utilized to
produce electricity. However, by its very nature, fracturing creates
earthquakes, albeit mostly of small magnitude. Last year, a case was
brought against geologist Markus Haring for inducing some 30
earthquakes, the largest a magnitude 3.4, through drilling and injecting
pressurized water into rocks 5 kilometers below the surface to generate
electricity. Damage to buildings in the region was estimated at $9
million. Although Haring was acquitted last December, the enhanced
geothermal project was terminated.
The Swiss case had significant ramifications, and sent a shot over
the bow to those in favor of enhanced geothermal, considered a clean and
virtually limitless energy source. In the U.S., the Department of
Energy had provided more than $100 million for enhanced geothermal. One
of the big projects was the AltaRock Energy project in an area called
The Geysers, about 160 kilometers north of San Francisco, Calif. The
Geysers comprise the largest complex of geothermal power plants in the
world, and supply one-fifth of the renewable energy produced in
California. The AltaRock project is — actually was — President Obama’s
first major test to advance geothermal energy generation.
But in December 2009, immediately following the shutdown of the
project in Switzerland, AltaRock Energy removed its drill rig and
informed the government that the project would be abandoned. The
Geysers’ geothermal fields are lined with active faults, and minor
earthquakes have been induced by the geothermal operations there; it
appears that the potential reward just wasn’t worth the risks for
AltaRock. The liabilities associated with the subsurface fracturing of
rock present a significant setback in our search for renewable energy.
Thus the efforts for more renewable energy will obviously be hampered
and derailed with these legal setbacks.
Geothermal isn’t the only form of energy under attack. Another recent
case centers on whether drilling a natural gas well caused four small
earthquakes — none above magnitude 2.8 — in the vicinity of Cleburne,
Texas, near Dallas-Fort Worth. It did not help that one of the
earthquakes occurred during the meeting of the city council while the
council was holding an emergency session to discuss this very topic.
This part of the Lone Star State had not had an earthquake in its
140-year history. The alleged culprit is either a practice called
fracking — which is the injection of water, with added chemicals, at
high pressures in order to fracture the underlying shale layers and
release natural gas trapped in the rocks — or the reinjection of
wastewater back into a depleted well, which is what one study found, as EARTH reported in June.
For now, gas production continues in Texas, but this issue and the
issue of how fracking affects groundwater are in the headlines
elsewhere, including in Pennsylvania, New York and other parts of the
Northeast. As of 2005, fracking was deemed exempt from federal
regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, but renewed interest on
the impact of fracking on water quality is being re-evaluated by the
Environmental Protection Agency. We haven’t heard the end of this issue.
The question of whether geologists can be held responsible for
inducing earthquakes is a bit different from the question that arose in
Italy late last spring: Can a geologist be held liable for not predicting an earthquake or any other natural hazard that occurs? Italian geologists, seismologists, volcanologists, engineers and the like were threatened with charges of manslaughter for failing to predict the magnitude-6.3 earthquake in L’Aquila
on April 6, 2009. The following statement was provided by the Major
Risk Committee, an advisory group to the Civil Protection Agency, in
reference to tremors that preceded the April 6 seismic event: “The
scientific community tells us there is no danger, because there is
ongoing discharge of energy.” This was followed by such statements as “a
major earthquake in the area is unlikely but cannot be ruled out” and
“Because L’Aquila is in a high-risk zone it is impossible to say with
certainty that there will be no large earthquake.”
Whether these and other statements offered prior to the earthquake
were adequate, appropriate or sufficient became questionable in the eyes
of blind justice. Do the Italian geologists deserve to be under
investigation for manslaughter for failure to forecast the earthquake?
My opinion: No. We will see how it plays out in the courts.
A series of small earthquakes that shook up the Dallas-Fort Worth area
may be linked to natural gas production in the nearby Barnett Shale
(Credit: iStockphoto.com/Veni)
Are geologists the new James Bond?
Last summer, American geologist Xue Feng was sentenced to eight years in a Chinese prison
for alleged oil espionage. Apparently Feng received documents on the
geological conditions of onshore oil wells and a database on some 30,000
oil and gas wells. The wells belonged to China National Petroleum
Corporation and listed subsidiary PetroChina, Ltd. Feng’s behavior was
not unusual, except that China contends that the information was
obtained illegally and allegedly sold to IHS Energy, a U.S. consultancy
firm and Feng’s employer. On July 5, 2010, China ignored a personal
appeal from President Obama and sentenced Feng to prison for buying
confidential information about China’s oil industry. Feng was also fined
$30,000 for attempting to obtain and traffic state secrets.
But regardless of the eventual outcome — assuming China has an appeal
process or can be persuaded by Feng’s supporters to reconsider its
verdict — there is little doubt that we will be seeing more of this type
of behavior as certain countries and companies become ever more
aggressive about obtaining available resources and supply lines to
fulfill their growth and expansion plans. The Feng incident, which
dragged on in the courts for more than two and a half years, also sent
warning signals to foreign businesses that may not be familiar with
security laws germane to other countries and jurisdictions.
Despite China’s displeasure with Feng’s alleged misbehavior, China
was alleged to be behind several spying events of its own, in the form
of cyber-attacks. Last January, the Christian Science Monitor reported
that at least three U.S. oil companies — Marathon Oil, ExxonMobil and
ConocoPhillips — were the target of a series of previously undisclosed
cyber-attacks. There is a growing level of sophistication in the global
war of Internet espionage. These new types of attack include custom-made
spyware that is virtually undetectable by antivirus and other
electronic defenses traditionally used by corporations. These new
cyber-burglary tools pose a serious threat to corporate America and the
long-term competitiveness of the nation, according to experts in this
field. We will need to stay tuned for the sequel in these unfolding
cyber-spies reports.
And in the realm of cyber-spying, there was Climategate,
although the emphasis has not been on the cyber-thieves who stole the
information but rather the information itself. Late in 2009, hackers
released a thousand private e-mails written by prominent climatologists.
The case threatened to discredit the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change’s Fourth Assessment Report, and threatened the integrity of the
scientific process as a whole. The e-mails exposed the hyper-political
nature of the debate on climate change, and caused the general public to
be more confused than ever. In the past year, a series of independent
reviews of the e-mails and of the situation has cleared the climatologists of any real legal wrongdoing,
but damage to the integrity of climate science remains. Interestingly,
the cyber-thieves appear to have made their getaway without legal
repercussions.
Amid the ongoing pursuit of resources and clean energy, as well as
public perception on what we do or don’t know, we will undoubtedly see
more geologists involved in legal wrangling in the future. Thus, what we
do, how we do it, how we document it and how we relate it to the public
becomes increasingly important.
Stephen Testa (Publication Date: Friday, December 3, 2010)
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