Guest writer

Stop pretending

State has quakes; be prepared

Arkansas has an earthquake problem--but it's not the problem you might think.

Last month, the Arkansas Governor's Earthquake Advisory Council convened to hear about earthquake readiness. This group of first responders, military and local representatives, and businesspeople is familiar with the seismic threats facing the state. We are, after all, part of the New Madrid Seismic Zone, the area dramatically shaken by the great New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12.

During those tremors, forests crashed to the ground, the earth rippled like waves at sea, huge sand blows spurted water and hot white sand up into the air to make circles still visible in fields, land subsidence blocked creeks to form lakes, the Mississippi roared and tumbled and even ran briefly backwards when the riverbed uplifted, and the land itself settled, creating the Great Swamp that later drainage projects had to work so hard to make arable. Those 1811-12 quakes were no oddity: The middle Mississippi Valley has shaken with similar series of quakes with disturbing geological regularity.

The assembled members of the advisory council are all too familiar with the U.S. Geological Survey's hazard map. On that map, northeast Arkansas appears as part of an elliptical bull's-eye of elevated threat, an area in which advance planning and preparation can save lives, preserve infrastructure, and promote effective recovery.

Members are also aware of the smaller-scale but disturbing earthquake history of north-central Arkansas, a region shaken in the early 1980s and again in 2001 by puzzling swarms of small earthquakes, and then more ominously in 2010-11 by earthquakes that increased until a magnitude-4.7 on Feb. 11, 2011.

In reaction, staff from the Arkansas Geological Survey and area universities listened to local residents' concerns about the fluid-injection wells connected with new fracking techniques and made a stunning set of research findings: Small but increasing quakes in the Guy-Greenbrier area were indeed correlated with injections into the disposal wells, and the configuration of the quakes matched the underground configuration of faults. Deep injection wells had apparently triggered faults that were already seismically primed.

For the first time in the United States, citizens stopped earthquakes: The Arkansas Oil & Gas Commission imposed a moratorium (now permanent) on new injection wells, and the Guy-Greenbrier sequence has continued to diminish. Frightening rattles are no longer constant front-page news in central Arkansas.

This advisory council meeting might therefore seem an ideal place for the geohazards and environmental geology supervisor of the Arkansas Geological Survey to highlight the earthquake-planning programs in the state--except that there is no geohazards supervisor. That position is vacant, and has been since February, when former Supervisor Scott Ausbrooks moved up to become assistant state geologist. No one can be hired to replace him because of the state hiring freeze.

The meeting might also seem an ideal place to discuss continuing monitoring of central Arkansas seismicity. Instead, the members heard that because of budget restrictions, the number of permanent seismometers in the state is going down. Without enough sensors, researchers cannot pick up small quakes, and may not be able to pinpoint the location even of moderate tremors. The state's early-warning system--the system that served Arkansas so well in 2010--is being partially dismantled.

The members did hear from the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management about its earthquake education efforts. Working in public/private partnership, department staff held a recent demonstration at the Jonesboro Home Depot to help homeowners learn how to tie down water heaters--a straightforward and invaluable step in limiting seismic harm. Their efforts were so successful that they had to close up shop after only two hours: So many people wanted the tie-down kits that they ran out of supplies after only one demonstration. There is no money for more.

Preparation ahead of disasters makes a big difference. Simple steps--store extra water, move emergency generators a few feet off the ground and out of flood range, print a paper copy of church member address lists so that pastors can help neighbors check on each other even if the electricity is down--can help communities recover after any disaster, including earthquakes.

We know that seismic safety codes make a difference: Because of strong building codes, fewer than 600 died in Chile because of a magnitude-8.8 earthquake in 2010, while that same terrible season a far smaller 7.0 quake killed perhaps more than a quarter-million people in Haiti. We know that information about what to do during a quake can save lives and prevent injury. Getting that information out to people, though, takes resources.

Staff at the Department of Emergency Management, Geological Survey, and related agencies do a heroic job of keeping Arkansans safe and well-informed on shoestring budgets. To be effective, the state needs to join them in recognizing that Arkansas is a seismically active place and devote resources to understanding and preparing for seismic threat.

Arkansas has an earthquake problem, but it's not that we have earthquakes: It's pretending we don't.

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Conevery Bolton Valencius grew up in Little Rock and teaches history at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. Her recent book, The Lost History of the New Madrid Earthquakes, is now out in paperback.

Editorial on 08/14/2015

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