Fracking could create huge sinkholes, scientists say

Oil and gas are fundamental elements in our lives, although we all know how dangerous they are. Indeed, their activity is very unsustainable. Among the risks, there is a rising threat of sinkholes across a huge swath of west Texas.

A new study by Southern Methodist University explain how the ground is rising and falling in a zone that has been « punctured like a pin cushion with oil wells and injection wells since the 1940s».

According to the state regulator, the oil wells in Texas were nearly 297,000 during the last month. We can found many of them across the Permian Besin, a region whom Bloomberg describes as the “world’s hottest oil patch”.

Southern Methodist’s study said that there is an unstable land in which the threat of sinkholes is very high. According to professor Zhong Lu « These hazards represent a danger to residents, roads, railroads, levees, dams, and oil and gas pipelines, as well as potential pollution of ground water».

The problem could be found in Wink, a tiny town 400 miles west of Dallas. The same scientists warned that the land between two expanding sinkholes a mile apart was deteriorating two years ago. This deterioration could create an huge single hole. 

Why is this happening? Wastewater and carbon dioxide in rocks increase their pore pressure, so the ground goes down. In an interview with the Guardian, professor Lu said that cracks and corrosion from ageing wells may help explain the sinking. There’s also a lake formed as a result of sinking ground and rising water. The ground movement, according to a last year study by the same University, could also be linked with recent earthquakes in Texas.

The study has been done with the help of satellite radar images of 4,000 sq miles (about half the size of Wales). «It’s crazy and just one more clear sign that we need to get off of oil as fast as possible» said Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, an advocacy group. Nevertheless, renewable energy is increasing: last year the state’s wind power capacity grew to exceed its capacity for generating electricity from coal-powered plants.