MEC&F Expert Engineers : 09/23/16

Friday, September 23, 2016

Sixteen students, driver injured after a Crosby ISD school bus flipped over in northeast Harris County after evasion maneuver





14 people rushed to hospital after bus rollover near Crosby, Kevin Quinn reports. (KTRK)

Updated 2 hrs 48 mins ago
HARRIS COUNTY (KTRK) -- Sixteen students and the driver were transported to a nearby hospital after a Crosby ISD school bus flipped over in northeast Harris County. The injuries are non-life threatening.

Harris County officials say nearly 50 students were trapped inside the bus when emergency officials responded to the scene on FM 1942 at Bohemian Hall Road. Officials tell Eyewitness News that it appears the bus swerved off the road to avoid a stalled vehicle in the road.

Crosby ISD superintendent Keith Moore says all buses are equipped with cameras. Bus 213 did not have seat belts.













Crosby ISD superintendent Keith Moore speaks to abc13's Deborah Wrigley.

Witness Damon Martin says when the bus driver tried to avoid hitting a truck, the bus veered off the road.

"When I saw everything happen, I dropped everything and ran over there," Martin said. "We took down the back door and we were using the back door to go inside and get everybody out to make sure they were safely put away from the scene."

Martin says the students were "pretty frantic."

"They (the students) were pretty frantic. Some of them, it's probably some of the worse stuff that has ever happened to them," Martin said. "I mean, it's pretty scary getting in a school bus, not having seat belts, you know the bus turned over on its side, windows breaking. You know it's in a ditch that is filled with water."





This 11-year-old boy was one of several students on the Crosby ISD bus when flipped on its side and crashed in a ditch.

The driver of the truck claims the bus driver swerved to avoid hitting him as he turned left.

"She was coming up from behind real quick," he said. "She was probably going too fast, she couldn't brake, couldn't stop, swerved and that's how they ended up in the ditch."

He says he thought the school bus was going to hit him.





A motorist claims a Crosby ISD bus skidded into a ditch after the bus driver swerved to avoid hitting his truck as he turned left.
Moore says the district will review video footage and work with law enforcement to see why the accident happened.





Witness describes saving students moments after a Crosby ISD School bus crashed



Ryan Sullivan, with the Harris County Sheriff's office, provides an update on the school bus rollover in Crosby.

No other details have been released.

Defense lawyers blame one another's clients for deadly 2013 collapse of the Salvation Army building in Philadelphia



'The wall came in,' says survivor of deadly 2013 collapse Updated: September 22, 2016 — 1:08 AM EDT

LUKE RAFFERTY / Staff File Photo Felicia Hill points to a photo of the Salvation Army building when telling her story of how she escaped from the building collapse in 2013.


by Joseph A. Slobodzian, Staff Writer

It was "out of the blue," recalled Felicia Hill.
 
One moment, Hill testified, she was chatting with Salvation Army coworker Nadine White, complimenting her about the way she did her hair.

"I heard a noise . . . and then all of a sudden the wall came in," Hill told a Philadelphia jury Wednesday, recalling the moment on the morning of June 5, 2013, when the remnants of a building being demolished crushed the Salvation Army's thrift store at 22nd and Market Streets in Center City.

Hill was the first witness as testimony began in the civil trial to determine who, if anyone, should be held financially liable to the families of the six people killed and 13 injured that morning. One of the injured died 23 days later.


The lawsuits contend that those demolishing the neighboring building at 2136-38 Market St. - and the wealthy New York real estate speculator who hired them - were incompetent and "grossly negligent."

Hill, who was 36 at the time of the collapse, was one of the survivors. She and White were in the sorting area of the thrift store, near the rear of the narrow, one-story building, at 22nd and Ludlow Streets.

Two Salvation Army employees died, along with four shoppers.

Questioned by her attorney, Jeffrey P. Goodman, Hill described how a day earlier, she and White had joked about whether the roof would fall, because of the sound of debris landing from the vacant four-story Hoagie City building that towered above them.

Salvation Army lawyer William J. Carr Jr. focused on Hill's comment to her coworker. Neither she nor her coworkers ever seriously thought they were in danger before the collapse, Carr suggested.

"I didn't think it would happen," Hill replied.

Also testifying Wednesday was Brian Stumm, a veteran union carpenter, who was supervising renovations on the roof of the Mutter Museum, across Ludlow Street from the rear of the store.

Stumm testified that in May 2013, he snapped five photographs looking down on the demolition work.

Testifying for the first time in public, Stumm said he had been concerned because demolition workers across the street were working on exposed joists and open flooring without safety harnesses to save them if they slipped.

Stumm said the workers also tossed bricks and other debris to Ludlow.

"They were dropping bricks and they were bouncing every which way in the street," Stumm said. "These guys didn't have people watching on the ground."

Stumm said that on May 15, he called the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration and reported the situation. OSHA inspectors visited the site but, according to testimony in last year's criminal trial involving the collapse, did not cite the demolition contractor for violating workplace safety rules.


Questioned by lawyer Thomas A. Sprague, representing Richard Basciano, the owner of the Hoagie City property, Stumm acknowledged that he did not believe - or tell OSHA - that the Hoagie City building was in danger of collapsing.

A month later, on June 5, Stumm testified, he was on 22nd Street, just south of Ludlow, when "I heard a couple of loud pops, turned around, and saw a piece of the west wall come down and a cloud of dust."




=======


Defense lawyers blame one another's clients for deadly 2013 collapse Updated: September 21, 2016 — 1:08 AM EDT


  ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer Workers remove the remnants of the Salvation Army store at 22nd and Market Streets after a neighboring four-story building collapsed, killing six people and injuring 13 in 2013.


by Joseph A. Slobodzian, Staff Writer

Lawyers for those sued in the deadly 2013 Center City building collapse made their opening statements to a Philadelphia civil jury Tuesday, each defendant casting blame elsewhere for the disaster that killed six and injured 13.
 
Thomas A. Sprague, the attorney for Richard Basciano, the New York real estate speculator who owned a building being demolished that toppled and crushed a Salvation Army thrift store, put the blame on Philadelphia architect Plato A. Marinakos Jr.

Marinakos was hired as the demolition architect and "owner's representative" by Basciano and top aides at his STB Investments Corp. to monitor the progress of demolition of five Basciano buildings on the 2100 and 2200 blocks of Market Street.

Sprague told the jury that Marinakos committed a "gross deviation" of his professional responsibilities to Basciano and STB: He steered a low-bid demolition contract to Griffin Campbell, an inexperienced and unlicensed North Philadelphia contractor, and he told no one when on June 4, 2013 - the evening before the collapse - he saw an unbraced three- to four-story wall towering above the one-story thrift store.

"As a professional, he had a responsibility, an obligation to notify the authorities of what he saw on the evening of June 4," Sprague told the jury. "He kept it from everyone but himself."

Marinakos' lawyer, Neil P. Clain Jr., put the responsibility for the collapse on Campbell and, mostly, on Sean Benschop, owner of a 36,000-pound excavator, who was hired by Campbell to help demolish the four-story "Hoagie City" building at 2136-38 Market St.


Benschop was picking at the building with an I-beam grasped in the excavator's claw when the building's unsupported wall toppled onto the Salvation Army store.

"Plato Marinakos had no control over him and how he did the job," Clain said, referring to Benschop.

Campbell and Benschop were the only two people prosecuted criminally for the collapse. Marinakos testified against both after being granted immunity from prosecution by the District Attorney's Office.

Benschop pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and testified against Campbell at trial last year. Campbell was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Both are serving long prison terms and are being sued, although they are considered penniless.

Campbell's attorney Bryan P. Werley told the jury that Benschop violated Campbell's instructions by using the excavator to demolish the building instead of loading recycled materials into a dumpster. And Werley blamed Marinakos for directing how and when the Hoagie City building was demolished.

Benschop, the only person to have taken responsibility for his role in the collapse, is not represented in the trial. But in a video deposition, he maintained that he was reluctantly following Campbell's explicit instructions in using the excavator.

Salvation Army attorney John J. Snyder told the jury that "the Salvation Army did not have a role in the collapse."

Basciano's lawyers have contended that the Salvation Army bore some responsibility because charity officials refused to allow Campbell's workers onto the thrift store's roof to facilitate the Hoagie City demolition.

Basciano's lawyers argued that Salvation Army officials ignored STB's warnings of an imminent danger to public safety because of the precarious state of the Hoagie City building.

Snyder, however, argued that most of the "warning emails" by STB property manager Thomas Simmonds never reached relevant officials of the Salvation Army, and that those that did were dismissed as "rants" by a man who had difficulty controlling his temper.

Snyder argued that STB, and by extension its employees Marinakos, Campbell, and Benschop, had the sole responsibility under the law to see that the Hoagie City building was demolished without endangering adjacent properties or public safety.

The plaintiffs' lawyers presented their openings Monday, telling the jury that all the defendants should be held financially liable for their roles in what they described as a chain of recklessness and gross negligence that ended in the disaster.

OSHA acted illegally when it imposed new safety requirements on fertilizer dealers without giving them a chance to comment








Court rules OSHA must go through rulemaking on PSM change

By Spencer Chase
 Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.


WASHINGTON, Sept. 23, 2016 - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration acted illegally when it imposed new safety requirements on fertilizer dealers without giving them a chance to comment, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday.

In its decision, the court ruled that OSHA acted outside the bounds of the Occupational Safety and Health Act when it redefined “retail facility” exemptions to the Process Safety Management Standard.

OSHA tightened the standard following the West Fertilizer facility explosion in 2013, caused by a fire that detonated between 40 and 60 tons of fertilizer grade ammonium nitrate. The explosion at the plant in West, Texas, killed 15 people, including 12 first responders, and caused widespread damage to more than 150 nearby buildings.

Before the rule change, facilities that derived more than half their income from direct sales to end users were exempt from the PSM requirements, which apply to facilities that handle toxic chemicals. After the change, however, ag dealers who sell anhydrous ammonia to farmers were swept into the regulatory net.

But when OSHA removed the retailer exemption, it did so without requesting public comment, which gave the Agricultural Retailers Association and The Fertilizer Institute the procedural angle for their lawsuit.

“OSHA made a bad decision in regulating ammonia in response to an ammonium nitrate incident, and the agency made that decision incorrectly,” ARA President and CEO Daren Coppock said in a press release. “Although ARA could only challenge on the procedural point and not the decision itself, we're still very pleased to see the court rule in our favor and to provide this relief to our members.”

ARA Chairman Harold Cooper called the court's ruling “a big win.” He pointed out that the retailer exemption in question had been in place “for more than 20 years and OSHA should not have redefined it without an opportunity for stakeholders to comment.”

Until OSHA completes a formal rulemaking process, which ARA said could take several years, ag retailers remain exempt from compliance with PSM requirements.

Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., who had been working with ARA on Capitol Hill on the issue, said he was glad to see the ruling, which “sends OSHA back to square one to ensure that producers are heard. That's essential not only because the regulation would be a hardship for farmers, but also because consumers will ultimately foot the bill paying higher food prices.”

ARA and TFI estimated the new requirements could cost each retail facility $25,000. OSHA's estimate was $2,500. Before the court ruling, OSHA had said the requirements would go into effect Oct. 1.

Washington D.C. Court of Appeals prevents the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from going forward with its anhydrous rule until “it follows the proper notice-and-comment procedures,’




An anhydrous ammonia nurse tank is seen at CHS Southwest Grain east of Taylor on Sunday, May 1, 2016. (Dustin Monke / The Dickinson Press)

Court stops anhydrous ammonia rule
By Forum News Service Today at 1:39 p.m. 

 A court’s decision to stop a new federal anhydrous ammonia rule is good for farmers in North Dakota and nationwide, Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and Sen Heidi Heitkamp, D.N.D., said Friday.


The decision by the Washington D.C. Court of Appeals prevents the Occupational Safety and Health Administration from going forward with its anhydrous rule until “it follows the proper notice-and-comment procedures,’ according to information from Hoeven’s office.

“We stopped OSHA’s anhydrous ammonia regulation from being implemented in fiscal year 2016, and we have legislation moving right now that would prevent the rule from being implemented in fiscal year 2017,” Hoeven said in a news release.

“Now, today’s court ruling sends OSHA back to square one to ensure that producers are heard. That’s essential not only because the regulation would be a hardship for farmers, but also because consumers will ultimately foot the bill paying higher food prices,” he said.

The regulation would force ag retail facilities to comply with the same chemical storage requirements as a wholesale facility. That would have caused some retailers to stop selling anhydrous ammonia, a widely used fertilizer, at rural locations, Hoeven’s office said.

“This is a victory for rural communities whose economies rely on farmers’ accessing inputs like anhydrous ammonia fertilizer. Complying with those standards could have cost each facility up to $50,000, according to the North Dakota Department of Agriculture,” Heitkamp said in a news release.

“More than 30 North Dakota retailers said they would have had to stop selling the fertilizer. With those huge impacts on our farmers, it was clear all along that there should have been a formal rulemaking process rather than just agency guidance with little input from those impacted,” she said.

OSHA: Galasso Trucking & Rigging, Inc. of Queens operator error, poor oversight led to deadly NYC crane collapse















  FDNY firefighters at the scene of a crane collapse on Worth Street in lower Manhattan on Friday, Feb. 5, 2016. Photo Credit: Craig Ruttle

Updated September 22, 2016 9:27 PM
By Anthony M. DeStefano anthony.destefano@newsday.com

Federal officials allege that a combination of operator error and poor oversight contributed to February’s collapse of a giant crane in TriBeCa that killed a Wall Street mathematician.

In a notice filed by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration against Galasso Trucking & Rigging, Inc. of Queens on Aug. 3, agency officials alleged that the company didn’t comply with a key operational requirement of the crane manufacturer about lowering the crane’s boom.

OSHA also contended that the crane operator didn’t adjust the crane’s operations to account for wind and snow on the morning of Feb. 5, when the 565-foot-long apparatus fell onto Worth Street, killing David Wichs, 38, and injuring others.

OSHA also alleged Galasso didn’t communicate to employees the proper standards for operating in wind, ice and snow. The company also didn’t comply with the crane manufacturer’s procedure that the boom angle not been lower than 75 degrees, the notice alleged.

An attorney for Galasso did not return a call for comment Thursday.
New YorkCrane collapses in TriBeCa: See photos from the scene

The giant crane, which officials said was owned by Bay Crane of Long Island City, collapsed while the boom was being lowered to a secure position in the face of rising wind gusts, according to city officials. Bay Crane was not accused of wrongdoing in the OSHA notice.

A Department of Labor spokesman said the OSHA case was still pending against Galasso and that it could be several months before a hearing occurs, unless the matter is settled. OSHA is asking for $22,448 in penalties against Galasso.

The crane operator is not mentioned by name in the OSHA documents, but he was identified in court papers as Kevin Reilly of Port Jefferson. Reilly could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Wichs’s widow Rebecca Wichs has filed a lawsuit in Manhattan state Supreme Court over his death, listing Galasso Trucking, Bay Crane Service, Reilly and others as defendants. Also suing is Thomas O’Brien, a Massachusetts man who sustained head, neck and back injuries in the collapse.

Jonathan Damashek, who represents O’Brien, said both lawsuits will likely be consolidated soon. He said that next week attorneys for the plaintiffs and defendants will be inspecting the mangled crane pieces, which are stored in Brooklyn.

Attorneys for Rebecca Wichs and Bay Crane did not return calls for comment Thursday.

Hired "Expert Carpenter" Stephen A. Estrin: Inexperienced Architect Plato A. Marinakos Jr. bears main responsibility for deadly Center City building collapse


Hired "Expert Carpenter"
Stephen A. Estrin: Inexperienced Architect Plato A. Marinakos Jr. bears main responsibility for deadly Center City building collapse 

Updated: September 23, 2016 — 5:27 PM EDT


  MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer Plato Marinakos Jr.​ was the supervising architect on the project that resulted in a deadly building collapse in 2013 .


by Joseph A. Slobodzian, STAFF WRITER

Center City architect Plato A. Marinakos Jr. is the person most responsible for the deadly 2013 collapse that crushed a Salvation Army thrift store, a construction expert testified Friday.

Marinakos was hired by New York real estate speculator Richard Basciano to act as his representative overseeing demolition of five Basciano buildings in the 2100 and 2200 blocks of Market Street.

On June 5, 2013, an unbraced three- to four-story brick wall remaining from a vacant four-story building toppled over onto the neighboring one-story Salvation Army store, killing six people and injuring 13.

"When did this project become dangerous?" plaintiffs' lawyer Robert J. Mongeluzzi asked construction and demolition industry expert Stephen A. Estrin.


"The moment they hired Mr. Marinakos as the owner's representative," replied Estrin.

Estrin, 77, began a second day of testimony Friday in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court civil trial of lawsuits on behalf of those killed and injured in the disaster.

Estrin is a former carpenter and general contractor who began his apprenticeship at age 14. For the last eight years, he has worked as a "forensic construction consultant" analyzing building failures. He has worked for Mongeluzzi in litigation involving the 2000 Pier 34 collapse on the Delaware River, which killed three people and injured 43, and the 2003 collapse of a parking garage under construction at the Tropicana Casino Resort in Atlantic City, which killed four people and injured dozens.

Estrin excoriated Marinakos, telling the jury of six men and six women that Marinakos, although a registered professional architect, had no experience overseeing construction or demolition.

Referring to quotes from Marinakos' deposition, Estrin said Marinakos admitted not knowing that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration had rules governing worker safety on demolition sites and never did any research.

When Mongeluzzi asked Estrin to detail the flaws in Marinakos' demolition plan, Estrin shot back: "There was never a plan."

"This was a haphazard operation done by totally incompetent people, and they did whatever they wanted from day to day," Estrin added.

On June 4, 2013, the day before the collapse, Marinakos visited the site and said he was horrified to see the freestanding wall looming above the thrift store. He called the contractor and told him the wall had to be down by morning.

That order, Estrin said, was impossible to accomplish. Yet Marinakos never called police, city authorities, or OSHA to report the danger, or called the men who hired him - Basciano and Thomas Simmonds, , property manager for Basciano’s STB Investments Corp. - to seek permission to close the demolition site.

Marinakos, 50, sat alone and almost inconspicuous in the gallery of the large courtroom and did not react to the criticisms from the witness stand.

The lawsuits contend that Marinakos was part of a chain of negligence that began with the 91-year-old Basciano and continued down to Griffin Campbell, the North Philadelphia demolition contractor whom Marinakos recommended to Basciano and Thomas Simmonds, property manager for Basciano's STB Investments Corp.

Citing sworn statements from Simmonds' pretrial deposition, Estrin noted that Simmonds never researched Marinakos' experience as an owner's representative in a major demolition project.

Basciano and Simmonds then accepted Marinakos' recommendation of Campbell, whose demolition experience consisted of two burned-out rowhouses. Campbell had no city license when he signed the contract, no company or corporate bank account, or liability insurance covering demolition work.

Estrin returns to the witness stand when the trial resumes Monday for additional questioning by Peter A. Greiner, a lawyer for Basciano's STB company.

On Friday, Greiner challenged Estrin's testimony on two fronts. He referred once to Estrin as a "supposed expert" and said his opinions were more personal than commonly accepted construction industry standards.

But he also had Estrin agree that Marinakos violated terms of his contract with STB by not informing them he thought the demolition had become a hazard to public safety.


Greiner also argued that it was unrealistic for an absentee owner to be expected to know all the laws and regulations governing construction and demolition when choosing a contractor.

Estrin said that "good due diligence" required that Basciano and Simmonds should have "looked for someone fully qualified to assist in making that decision."

Radar from satellites show that five Texas earthquakes, one reaching magnitude 4.8, were caused by injections of wastewater in drilling for oil and gas.


Satellite-based radar confirms man-made Texas earthquakes

Published September 22, 2016
Associated Press


WASHINGTON – Scientists used radar from satellites to show that five Texas earthquakes, one reaching magnitude 4.8, were caused by injections of wastewater in drilling for oil and gas.

In 2012 and 2013, earthquakes — five of them considered significant — shook East Texas near Timpson. A team of scientists for the first time were able to track the uplifting ground movements in the earthquake using radar from satellites. A study in the journal Science on Thursday says it confirms that these were not natural, something scientists had previously said was likely using a more traditional analysis.

Study co-author Stanford University William Ellsworth said the technique provides a new way to determine what quakes are man-made.

The team looked at two sets of wells, eastern and western. The eastern wells were shallow and the satellite radar showed that the eastern wells weren't the culprit, but the high-volume deeper western ones were, Ellsworth said.

Cornell University seismologist Rowena Lohman, who wasn't part of the study, said it shows that satellite data of ground changes provide good ways to complement what's measured on the ground.

The quakes have stopped, but Ellsworth said, "the area was shaken pretty thoroughly over a period of about 18 months."

Ellsworth said the shaking stopped when injection of wastewater dramatically decreased. And that's a lesson that other areas — such as Kansas and Oklahoma — also have learned.

"Part of the solution is how we manage this problem," Ellsworth said. "If we get the pressure to go down at depth, the earthquakes stop. "


======


Texas quakes man-made, caused by wastewater injections – satellite data
Published time: 23 Sep, 2016 15:42
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An oil rig is silhouetted against the sunset in St. Lawrence, Texas © Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters
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Five earthquakes which shook Texas in 2012 and 2013 were caused by wastewater injections during drilling for oil and gas, scientists said after analyzing satellite radar data.


A series of earthquakes struck near the town of Timpson in eastern Texas over the course of a year and a half, with the team of American and British researchers looking into the most powerful of them, which took place in 2012 and reached a magnitude of 4.8.

The researchers used Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar, or InSAR, to track the ground movements in the quakes and establish that their causes weren’t natural.
 
“Our study reports on the first observations of surface uplift associated with wastewater injection. The detection of uplift when combined with well-injection records provides a new way to study wastewater injection,” study co-author William Ellsworth, a geophysics professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, told the university’s website.

The scientists examined four high-volume wells near Timpson, which had around 760 million liters of wastewater pumped into them annually at peak activity.

The satellite data revealed that the two deep wells west of the town were responsible for the quake, while the shallow wells in the east were not connected to it.

According to the paper, published in the journal Science, the wells, which had wastewater injected at the depth of over 1 mile, lie directly above where the earthquake occurred.

“The area was shaken pretty thoroughly over a period of about 18 months,” Ellsworth said, adding that the tremors stopped only when the injections were drastically decreased.

The scientist stressed that it’s crucial to understand the geology of the area for the injections of waste water to be safe.

“The recent upturn in seismicity in Oklahoma and Kansas commonly happens where injection occurs close to the crystalline basement, so we’re getting lots of earthquakes in those places,” Ellsworth said.

“Injecting at shallower depth above a blocking formation would reduce the ability of the pore pressures to migrate to the basement and activate the faults,” he added.

Cornell University seismologist Rowena Lohman, who wasn’t part of the research, told AP that the satellite data has proven to be a useful addition to the measurements made on the ground as wastewater injections were previously also blamed for the Texas quakes.




Surface uplift and time-dependent seismic hazard due to fluid injection in eastern Texas

Science  23 Sep 2016:
Vol. 353, Issue 6306, pp. 1416-1419
DOI: 10.1126/science.aag0262

Abstract

Observations that unequivocally link seismicity and wastewater injection are scarce. Here we show that wastewater injection in eastern Texas causes uplift, detectable in radar interferometric data up to >8 kilometers from the wells. Using measurements of uplift, reported injection data, and a poroelastic model, we computed the crustal strain and pore pressure. We infer that an increase of >1 megapascal in pore pressure in rocks with low compressibility triggers earthquakes, including the 4.8–moment magnitude event that occurred on 17 May 2012, the largest earthquake recorded in eastern Texas. Seismic activity increased even while injection rates declined, owing to diffusion of pore pressure from earlier periods with higher injection rates. Induced seismicity potential is suppressed where tight confining formations prevent pore pressure from propagating into crystalline basement rocks.

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A researcher reviews the seismic waves generated by an east Texas quake that occurred on 10 May 2012.

Associated Press
Series of Texas quakes likely triggered by oil and gas industry activity

By Sid PerkinsSep. 22, 2016 , 2:00 PM

During the past decade or so the oil and gas industry has injected wastewater into deep rocks in eastern Texas, causing Earth’s surface to bulge ever so slightly—and likely triggering a series of tremors there in 2012, a new study suggests. Scientists say the work offers hope that similar analyses of the landscape in other oil- and gas-producing regions could help identify areas at risk of human-caused earthquakes.

The 2012 quakes shook the small town of Timpson, Texas, which lies northeast of Houston near the Louisiana state line. The largest, a 4.8-magnitude quake, and three more magnitude-4 or higher that followed, all originated in a suspicious spot: directly beneath two wells where wastewater generated during oil and gas production in the region is pumped into porous sandstone layers about 1.8 kilometers underground. Oil and gas producers dispose of their wastewater deep underground for a variety of reasons; sometimes pumping fluid into the reservoir helps boost production, and in other cases it’s a convenient method of getting polluted water out of retention ponds on the surface so that it doesn’t inadvertently spill to pollute rivers, streams, or other sources of drinking water.

According to data provided by the companies that owned the wells, between 2007 and mid-2012 the two injection wells nearest the quakes and another two wells fewer than 10 kilometers away pumped, on average, about 890,000 cubic meters of water into the ground each year. (Or, put another way, that’s about one Olympic swimming pool worth of wastewater pumped underground each day.)

Many studies have already noted the link between wastewater injection wells and swarms of nearby tremors, says Manoochehr Shirzaei, a geophysicist at Arizona State University, Tempe. Few doubt that injection wells are the chief reason that Oklahoma has overtaken California as the earthquake capital of the United States’s lower 48. But in the new analysis, he and his colleagues looked to build more than just a circumstantial case linking the four underground disposal wells to Timpson’s temblors.

First, the team used a technique that compared a series of radar images of the area taken from space. Between May 2007 and November 2010, the terrain between the two sets of injection wells rose as much as 3 millimeters per year, on average, the researchers report online today in Science. Although hordes of studies have noted subsidence, or sinking, of the landscape when oil, gas, or water for irrigation are withdrawn from underground reservoirs, this new analysis is one of the first to note uplift as a result of pumping fluid into the ground, Shirzaei says.

The team then went further. Using computer simulations, and the bulging ground as a constraint, the researchers found that over time the wastewater seeped away from the injection point and boosted water pressure within the tiny spaces in the surrounding rocks—a parameter scientists call pore pressure. Eventually, the expanding front of increased pore pressure reached fault zones and triggered quakes between depths of 3.5 and 4.5 kilometers, Shirzaei says. The team’s models suggest the pore pressure in the rocks along the fault zones increased to a level that has been large enough to trigger aftershocks to major quakes elsewhere in the world, he notes.

The group’s combination of monitoring uplift of the landscape over time and modeling the effects of wastewater injection on pore pressure “is a powerful approach,” says Shemin Ge, a hydrogeologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “It will help advance our understanding of what’s actually going on in rocks near wastewater injection sites.”

The new findings will also guide where future wells should be located and how much wastewater—and possibly more importantly, how slowly such wastewater—should be pumped into areas near known fault zones, Ge says. Geological context is also important, she says. As Shirzaei and his team noted in one part of their study, some areas seemed immune from tremors, possibly because layers of impermeable rocks lie between the wastewater injection point and susceptible fault zones. In such a configuration, the wastewater can’t migrate to the fault and cause a quake. “Without water, nothing’s going to happen,” she says.

Drilling and maintaining wells to directly monitor water pressure in deep rocks is both challenging and costly, says Roland Bürgmann, a geophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. Thus, he suggests, injection-induced uplift, detectable from space, could serve as a less-expensive warning sign of increased seismic risk. “We can’t predict such induced earthquakes,” he notes, “but maybe we can better understand the conditions that lead to them.”

Benicia rejected plans to bring trains filled with crude oil to Valero Corp.’s big refinery in the city







Benicia’s rejection of oil trains could reverberate across country

By Kurtis Alexander
Updated 5:11 pm, Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle


 The Valero refinery is seen in the background behind signage for a railroad crossing on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 in Benicia, Calif.

Benicia’s rejection of plans to bring trains filled with crude oil to Valero Corp.’s big refinery in the city was hailed Wednesday by critics of the country’s expanding oil-by-rail operations, who hope the flexing of local power will reverberate across the Bay Area and the nation.

Of particular interest to environmentalists and local opponents, who for years have argued that Valero’s proposal brought the danger of a catastrophic spill or fire, was a last-minute decision by U.S. officials that Benicia’s elected leaders — not the federal government — had the final say in the matter.

Word of that decision arrived just before the City Council, in a unanimous vote late Tuesday, dismissed Valero’s proposal for a new $70 million rail depot along the Carquinez Strait off Interstate 680. Valero had said the project would not only be safe but bring local jobs, tax revenue and lower gas prices.

“We’re pleased with the decision and the implications it will have across the country,” said Jackie Prange, a staff attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of several groups opposed to the project. “This issue is live in a number of sites across the country. This is definitely a decision that I think cities in other states will be looking to.”

As oil production has boomed across North America, so has the need to send crude via railroad. The uptick in tanker trains, though, has been accompanied by a spate of accidents in recent years, including a 2013 derailment in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic in which a 72-car train exploded and killed more than 40 people.

The authority of communities to limit oil trains has been clouded by the assertion of some in the petroleum industry that local officials don’t have jurisdiction to get in the way. Companies like Valero have contended that railroad issues are matter of interstate commerce — and hence are the purview of the federal government.

Shortly before Tuesday’s meeting, however, Benicia officials received a letter from the U.S. Surface Transportation Board, which wrote that Valero, based in Texas, was not a railroad company and that the proposed rail terminal fell under city jurisdiction.

“It’s what I was waiting for to help me make my vote more defensible,” said Councilman Alan Schwartzman at the meeting.

Earlier this year, Valero had asked the Surface Transportation Board for “preemption” protection for the project after Benicia’s Planning Commission rejected the proposal. The plan proceeded to the City Council upon appeal.

The plan called for oil deliveries from up to two 50-car trains a day, many passing through several Northern California communities en route from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. Those trains would carry as many as 70,000 barrels of oil.

The company billed the project as a way to keep gasoline prices low in the absence of a major oil pipeline serving the West Coast. Crude is currently brought to the Bay Area mostly by boat or through smaller pipelines.

On Wednesday, Valero officials expressed frustration at the city’s decision.

“After nearly four years of review and analysis by independent experts and the city, we are disappointed that the City Council members have chosen to reject the crude by rail project,” spokeswoman Lillian Riojas wrote in an email. “At this time we are considering our options moving forward.”

The vote directly hit the city’s pocketbook. Nearly 25 percent of Benicia’s budget comes from taxes on the oil giant, and the city coffers stood to grow with more crude. The refinery employs about 500 people, according to city records.

But the city’s environmental study showed that oil trains presented a hazard. The document concluded that an accident was possible on the nearly 70 miles of track between Roseville (Placer County) and the refinery, though the likelihood was only one event every 111 years.

The document also suggested that much of the crude coming to the Bay Area from North Dakota, as well as from tar sands in Canada, was more flammable than most.

Several cities in the Bay Area and Sacramento area joined environmental groups in calling for rejection of the project.

“The council’s vote is a tremendous victory for the community and communities all throughout California,” said Ethan Buckner of the opposition group Stand, who was among more than 100 people who turned out for the council’s verdict. “At a time when oil consumption in California is going down, projects like this are unnecessary.”

At least two other plans are in the works for oil delivery by rail elsewhere in the region — in Richmond and Pittsburg. A handful of other proposals have been put forth in other parts of California, including the expansion of a rail spur at a Phillips 66 refinery in San Luis Obispo County, which is scheduled to be heard by the county planning board Thursday.

Prange, with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said this week’s finding by the Surface Transportation Board gives cities the confidence to reject the proposed oil trains, if they wish to do so.

“It reaffirms the power of local government to protect their citizens from these dangerous projects,” she said.

U.S. oil deliveries by rail have grown quickly, from 20 million barrels in 2010 to 323 million in 2015, according to government estimates. In response, federal transportation officials have worked to improve the safety of oil-carrying cars with new regulations.

But over the past year, rail deliveries nationwide have slowed, in part because of the stricter rules as well as local opposition, falling crude prices and new pipelines.

Critics have complained that the tightened rules have fallen short, pointing to incidents like a June train derailment in Mosier, Ore., which spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude into the Columbia River. Leaders in Oregon are discussing a statewide ban on crude trains.