I live in Aurora, Colorado and have been noticing seismic tremors occurring all over the metro area of Denver for the past two years. These are not earthquake-like tremors, but mechanically-generated vibrations that have serious public health implications for people living here.
For the past two years, starting in January 2011, I have noted ground tremors occurring in the Denver metro area. I have also noticed health effects, in me, including sleeplessness, heart arrythmia, muscle and nerve pain, dizzyness and headaches.
Usually, earthquake tremors are one big pulse followed by aftershocks. That is not the case here. These are high frequency tremors, sometimes as fast as 10 to 20 times a second, that go on for hours at a time, a sign of mechanical, man made activity. I don't have the equipment or financial resources to pinpoint the source of these, but have noticed that the oil industry has been moving into this area. Companies such as Anadarko Petroleum, Halliburton, Conoco-Phillips and others are setting up shop here.
In a April 10,2011 article written by Mark Jaffe of the Denver Post, the oil companies here are after the Denver-Julesburg Basin of the Niobrara shale oil formation, a vast rock formation underneath much of the Great Plains.
The question is, if the oil companies are after the oil, and the oil is in the shale rock, how are they recovering the oil from the rock? I don't see any mining pits around here. They are not digging the rock up and extracting the oil. They are drilling recovery wells, and magically, the oil is pumped up. There is some sort of treatment process being done to the rock. I have a science degree, and I have seen sonication being done in the laboratory, where high intensity sonic waves are generated in a water bath to clean glassware. Could the same thing be happening with the shale rock being done here? There seems to be some sort of seismic wave generation process being done here. The oil industry is no stranger to seismology. Seismology is the oil industry's bread and butter. It's how they find oil. And in this case, it's used to recover oil. The problem is, the oil companies haven't told anyone. They conveniently had themselves exempted from the Community Right-to-know act in 2005, during the Cheney-Bush years, as well as being exempted from the Safe Water Drinking Act, and other health and environmental safeguard laws.
There is going to a Presidential debate here in Denver this Wednesday night. What I would like to ask the two candidates, President Obama and Governor Romney is:
"Would you take action to stop an unsafe seismic-wave oil and gas extraction method that is an immediate threat to public health and safety and is happening right here, right now in the Denver area?"
I yield the floor.