Alma Hasse, an activist with IRAGE, Idaho Residents Against Gas Extraction was arrested Thursday during an open meeting about potential expansion of Alta Mesa’s, a Texas-based gas company, lease for land to build a gas treatment unit.
According to witnesses, Hasse had attempted to ask a question during the deliberation stage of the hearing. The commission refused to allow Hasse to ask her question and she was told to leave the meeting. When Hasse refused to leave, the commission took steps to have her arrested.
Commissioner Pete Morgan claimed that Hasse had presented misleading information during a previous public hearing. During the testimony in question, Hasse stated that Santa Barbara, California, had an ordinance forbidding gas transport by railway. Morgan claims he contacted Santa Barbara’s zoning committee and says he was told, “…there was no such ordinance.”
Hasse asked Morgan to name the person who provided the information. Morgan initially refused to release the data, only providing the requested information after Hasse had been arrested. Pete Morgan has not responded to emails seeking a comment on the Commissions’ actions.
Hasse, along with co-leader, Tina Fisher, have been leading IRAGE, an Idaho group that works to stop hydraulic fracturing, better known as “fracking.”
Hasse has been researching fracking, and sharing what she’s learned, for four years. Well known throughout Idaho, Hasse has attended hearings and political meetings and has been repeatedly unsuccessful in her attempts to get Idaho’s politicians to respond to her questions.
The fracking industry in Idaho is allowed, by state statue, to submit applications that are essentially useless. The statutes permit a fracking application to be left blank with the phrase, “To be completed after construction,” stamped on an otherwise blank page, leaving Idaho citizens to wonder how the practice is acceptable.
Hasse is being held at the Payette County Jail in Payette County, Idaho. She is not allowed to have visitors and is being denied phone calls according to Hasse supporters.
Increased Earthquakes Follow Fracking
Current available evidence appears to support the theory that fracking is responsible for increased seismic activity.
A recent U.S. Geological Survey found that over 140 earthquakes, with a magnitude of 3.0 or greater, have occurred in Oklahoma between January 2014 and May 2, 2014. The long-term average rate, from 1978 until 2008, was only two earthquakes of the same magnitude per year.
Analysis of the study shows that a probable contributing factor to the increase is wastewater being injected into deep geologic formations. The phenomenon, called injection-induced seismicity, has been known for almost 50 years. Injection-induced seismicity has also been shown to be responsible for earthquakes recently in Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Colorado.
The USGS also claims that a magnitude 5.0 earthquake in Prague, Oklahoma in 2011 was human-induced, caused by fluid injection process which is the main component of hydraulic fracturing.
Fracking in Idaho
The issue of fracking in Idaho has been contentious from the start. The Republican dominated statehouse has ignored the wishes of communities in the state and introduced, and passed, legislation written by the gas industry.
In 2012 the state’s legislator’s passed a bill which would give counties and communities the right to pass their own ordinances about fracking — as long as the proposed ordinances fell in line with state mandates.
State Senator, Mitch Toryanski of Boise, said, “I don’t see a whole lot of room in there [the bill] for the consideration of the sensibilities and concerns of the local community.”
Idaho House leaders, including Speaker Lawrence Denney and Representative Judy Boyle, both from Midvale, worked closely with Arkansas-based Snake River Oil and Gas to write the controversial 2012 legislation. The bill forbids cities and counties from passing any ordinances, rules or standards which would make it impossible for a company to extract oil and gas from underground deposits.
The bill also forbids local governments from requiring energy companies to get a conditional use permit for their activities despite the fact that conditional use permits are routinely required for other types of construction projects.
