Fracking Trifecta: Nuclear Accident, Toxic Coal Ash Spill, Frack-Induced Earthquake

March 9, 2012 (NBC News)

A dozen earthquakes that struck Ohio in 2011 appear to have been induced by the workings of a fracking wastewater well, the state Department of Natural Resources said Friday, as it announced new rules for the disposal of a fracking byproduct because of its apparent link to the tremors.

The Youngstown, Ohio, area experienced the quakes – ranging from 2.1 to 4.0 magnitude – starting in March 2011. A 4.0 quake on Dec. 31 prompted Gov. John Kasich to order a moratorium that is still in place on six Class II deep injection wells.

Oct 20, 2012 (Beaver County Times)

Permit to drill is only a mile from nuclear plant

SHIPPINGPORT -- Chesapeake Energy has a permit for hydraulic fracking just one mile from the Beaver Valley Nuclear Power Station in Shippingport. Whether that is cause for alarm, experts can’t say.

DEP spokesman John Poister said there are no required setbacks specifically relating to a required distance between unconventional wells and nuclear facilities, just a blanket regulation requiring a 500-foot setback from any building.

A New Type of State Gambling in Shippingport, PA

Which is more foolish? Building a new nuclear power plant in a known earthquake zone, or building a new earthquake zone under a known nuclear power plant, just because somehow we don't have any rules against it? Yes, these are the people who say we need to deregulate industry and take the shackles off the job producers.

But wait, there's more!

It's not only that they're going to pulverize the ground 1.06 miles from a nuclear power plant. I've written about this elsewhere, but then so has National Geographic: Largest U.S. Coal Ash Pond to Close.

The pretty blue lagoon 4.5 miles west of the drilling site where Chesapeake Energy is going to be pulverizing the earth, is a containment pond filled with arsenic, selenium, cadmium, lead, mercury, sulfates and chlorides - all the poisons accumulated from the nearby coal-fired power plants. The State is forcing First Energy to stop adding sludge to the pond because - well, because it's leaking into nearby water supplies. Oops.

Here's an interesting picture of the earthen dam that's keeping all that nasty stuff from pouring into the Ohio River and ending up in the Mississippi River:

Here's a funny little thought experiment. Take a poisonous lake that's leaking, with a dam holding all that poison back from a major national waterway. Start a bunch of earth-shattering explosions underground that the state of Ohio has determined to cause significant earthquakes in the same geological region. See how that works out for you.