Chevron got bad news this week: An Ecuadorian appeals court rejected an attempt by Chevron to overturn a February 2011 ruling that charged the company $18 billion for spilling chemicals in the Amazon Basin more than 20 years ago.
Chevron appealed the ruling on the grounds that that it was not responsible for chemical-laden wastewater dumped in jungle land from 1964 to 1992 by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001.
So could the companies that frack today -- and the ones that follow them -- be liable for damages decades from now?
Yes, I was a very precocious child
Pittsburgh press must have gotten a lot of attention for publishing a kindergartener.
Wow, that would really suck....
Here...this is from the Pittsburgh Press in 1980. When I was in kindergarten. 
The funniest thing about mine subsidence insurance -- if you have a warped sense of humor -- is that the natives in Western PA do not tell people who move there about the need to buy it. Then they act surprised when someone's house collapses and the homeowner has no recourse.
I am not joking. I lived there.
Insurance for if your house falls into an old mine....there's an industry I want to build my life on
I am no geologist either, but from what i do recall from the single geology class i took as an undergrad, I think to have an earthquake the magnatude of 4.0 there would have to be movment of plates.
From what I have been hearing on the radio it sounds like the working theory is that the presure used to force the fluid into the ground is causing a lot of displacement and cuasing fault lines that were once not active to get a jump start, but at the end of the day, no one knows what is causing it.
Yep. The mines are mapped. In theory. In reality, many of the mines were unauthorized or done by private citizens or done before maps were considered all that important. So you can check to see if your house is above an old mine, but it's not that reassuring. The best bet is to buy mine subsidence insurance: another unique western Pa/eastern Ohio product, like chipped ham. (don't ask.)
Anyway, I am not a geologist, but I have to think that drilling through one of these voids could be unsettling to the surrounding rock. What if the drill or the frack sleeves hit rock that's supporting an already weak piece of timber (that shouldn't be there in the first place but is?)
Re: Specific locations
Tenacious
1/5/2012 12:44:40 PM
There's another factor in Western PA/Eastern Ohio. The whole area is undermined. Years ago, there were coal mines all over the place. they were supposed to leave pillars of coal as supports. During the Great Depression, people went in and chipped away those supports to warm their homes and replaced the pillars of coal with timbers. Over time, the timbers rot and you get this unique thing called mine subsidence. One day, a whole house will just fall into a giant hole.
So, wait, you have these preexisting holes hundreds of feet below the surface, and then huge amounts of fluid are pumped into or through them?
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