I went to a 'Science Café' lecture last night that was given by a couple of OSU professors, down at the public library. Dr. Halihan, a geology professor at OSU, explained the basics of O/G exploration and production. He had diagrams showing the steps the industry takes to try to prevent surface and water contamination. He explained the process of fracking, deep water injection, and the problems of unknown fault lines. His current research appears to be in the area of correlation between injection wells & the earthquakes Payne Co has been experiencing.
Dr. Penn explained the composition of drilling mud and the land based application of mud. His portion was more about the chemistry between drilling waste and the environment.
There will be another lecture in this series on 6/5/14 at the public library in Stw at 6:30pm. That segment will be about housing & community issues that arise from the increased influx of workers in the area.
It was a very informative lecture, but I think mineral owners were in the minority in the audience. Come and learn what is going on in Payne County - it's free!
I was unaware of the vocal activist group that is active in Payne Co. They were present, and it is their mission to stop all fracking, injection wells, pipelines and O/G production. I'll save that for another post.