Oklahoma

Glitter Activists Found Not Guilty In Oklahoma

September 6, 2016 Staff, www.gptarsandsresistance.org Resist! Activists, Environment, Oil and Gas, Oklahoma

By Staff of GPTSR - Judge Phillipa James announced today a Not Guilty Verdict in regards to last month’s Disorderly Conduct trial of local environmental activists Moriah Stephenson and Stefan Warner. Stephenson and Warner were arrested nearly two and a half years earlier when glitter spilled off of a Hunger Games-themed banner that the activists hung in the open-to-the-public atrium of the Devon Energy building.

Earthquake Rattles Oklahoma Amid Warnings Of ‘Inherent’ Fracking Risks

September 6, 2016 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org Educate! Earthquakes, Fracking, Oklahoma

By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Oklahoma was hit with a 5.6-magnitude earthquake on Saturday, with reports of tremors felt in six neighboring states—making it one of the strongest quakes in Oklahoma's history and fueling a growing consensus that the cause lies with wastewater disposal from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. CNN reported that the event also rattled Kansas, Arkansas, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska, and Iowa, citing geophysicists with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), who said it "occurred as the result of shallow strike-slip faulting."

Is Coal Ash Killing This Oklahoma Town?

June 14, 2016 Staff, www.insideclimatenews.org Educate! Air Pollution, Coal ash, Oklahoma

By Staff of Inside Climate News - The wind that blows through Bokoshe, Okla. is an ominous one. A small, low-income town near the Arkansas border, Bokoshe sits in the shadow of a coal power plant. Its toxic byproduct, coal ash, is trucked daily to a nearby dump, and when the wind blows through town, that ash rains down on its residents. They believe it is to blame for the asthma and cancer that runs rampant there. For six years, one photographer has documented the story, and struggles, of the people of Bokoshe.

Cops Called On Reporter Asking About Climate At Oil & Gas Convention

October 13, 2015 Steve Horn, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Environement, Oklahoma

By Steve Horn for Counter Punch - On October 1, I arrived at the Oklahoma City headquarters of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC) — a congressionally-chartered collective of oil and gas producing states — hoping for an interview. There to ask IOGCC if it believed human activity (and specifically oil and gas drilling) causes climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, my plans that day came to a screeching halt when cops from the Oklahoma City Police Department rolled up and said that they had received a 9-1-1 call reporting me and my activity as “suspicious” (listen to the audio here). What IOGCC apparently didn’t tell the cops, though, was that I had already told them via email that I would be in the area that day and would like to do an interview.

City Turns ‘Columbus’ Day To ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Day’

October 7, 2015 Mackenzie Wright, www.newsiosity.com Create! Colonialism, Oklahoma, Race

By Mackenzie Wright for Newsiosity. Anadrako City, OK - For decades, celebrating 'Columbus Day' has been hotly debated. Many feel Christopher Columbus is largely responsible for the decimation of the Native Americans, and giving him a day of celebration just adds insult to injury. In a progressive move, a town in Oklahoma has changed all that. The Anadarko City Council voted on September 14th to change 'Columbus Day' to 'Indigenous Peoples’ Day.' The vote was unanimous, and from now on, instead of honoring Columbus, the town will honor Native Americans. The idea originally came from local Native Americans who convinced the council why it's insulting for Americans to honor Columbus, who they consider a genocidal imperialist. Considering Oklahoma's large Native American population, it felt like an appropriate place to begin making a change.

40 Earthquakes Hit Frack-Happy Oklahoma In Last 7 Days

July 30, 2015 Cole Mellino, www.ecowatch.com Educate! Earthquake, Fracking, Oklahoma

By Cole Mellino in EcoWatch - Yesterday Oklahoma recorded five earthquakes centered near Crescent, Oklahoma, some of which were felt in at least five states—Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, Missouri and Arkansas. Three of the quakes measured above 4.0-magnitude and the biggest of these was a 4.5-magnitude earthquake, the strongest earthquake in the region since a magnitude-4.9 near Conway Springs, Kansas, on Nov. 12, 2014. The strongest magnitude earthquake on record occurred onNov. 5, 2011 and registered as 5.6-magnitude. There was no reported significant damage from the earthquakes, but the rate of earthquakes in Oklahoma has increased by about 50 percent in the last two years, greatly increasing the chance for a damaging quake, according to the USGS. There have been eight quakes of magnitude 3.0 or larger near Crescent since Saturday and during the past seven days,Oklahoma has experienced about 40 earthquakes.

In Oklahoma, Fracking Companies Can Be Sued Over Earthquakes

July 3, 2015 Emily Atkin, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Earthquake, Environment, Fracking, Law, Oklahoma

By Emily Atkin in Think Progress - If you live in Oklahoma, and you’ve been injured by an earthquake that was possibly triggered by oil and gas operations, you can now sue the oil company for damages. That’s the effect of a ruling by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, which on Tuesday rejected efforts by the oil industry to prevent earthquake injury lawsuits from being heard in court. Instead of being decided by juries and judges, the industry was arguing that cases should be resolved by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, a state regulatory agency. The state’s high court rejected that argument. “The Commission, although possessing many of the powers of a court of record, is without the authority to entertain a suit for damages,” the opinion reads. “Private tort actions, therefore, are exclusively within the jurisdiction of district courts.”

Why These Kansas Ob-Gyns Are Suing To Stop New Abortion Ban

June 8, 2015 Samantha Lachman, www.huffingtonpost.com Educate! Abortion, health, Law, Oklahoma, Women’s health

By Samantha Lachman in Huffington Post - Hodes and Nauser are serving as plaintiffs in a lawsuit against a new law that could block them from using the most common method for second-trimester abortions, called dilation and evacuation (D&E). The suit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights, seeks to have the legislation blocked before it takes effect July 1. A hearing for the suit hasn't yet been scheduled. The law in question bans what the anti-abortion advocates behind it describe as "dismemberment abortion" by prohibiting doctors from using forceps, clamps, scissors or other instruments to remove a fetus from the womb. Reproductive rights advocates say the measure is a public relations stunt, aimed at using graphic language to turn people against the procedure altogether.

Video Shows Cop Mocking Unarmed Man Dying From Police Bullet

April 13, 2015 Ian Millhiser, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Law, Oklahoma, police brutality, Police the Police

Video released by an Oklahoma sheriff’s department on Friday shows an unarmed black man named Eric Harris fleeing police as they exit their cars to chase him. After officers catch up to Harris and bring him to the ground, an officer calls out the word “Taser” twice, before firing a single shot at Harris. The shot, which was fired by Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, was fatal. Harris was pronounced dead an hour later. The shooting appears to be a tragic accident. Bates did say “Taser” before shooting Harris, and immediately after pulling the trigger, Bates drops the gun and says “Oh! I shot him. I’m sorry.” At a press conference on Friday, a Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson claimed that Bates was a “true victim” of something called “slips and capture” — a police term for when someone does one thing while believing they are doing something else in a high stress situation.

Oklahoma Bill Would Ban AP US History Class

February 19, 2015 Judd Legum, www.readersupportednews.org Educate! Education, History, Oklahoma

An Oklahoma bill banning Advanced Placement U.S. History would also require schools to instruct students in a long list of “foundational documents,” including the Ten Commandments, two sermons and three speeches by Ronald Reagan. The bill, authored by Oklahoma Rep. Dan Fisher, designates a total of 58 documents that “shall form the base level of academic content for all United States History courses offered in the schools in the state." Many of the texts are uncontroversial and undoubtedly covered by the Advanced Placement U.S. History course, such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg address. But the bill also has an ideological and religious bent. In addition to 3 speeches by Reagan, the curriculum as includes a speech by George W. Bush but nothing from any Democratic president since Lyndon Johnson.

Marijuana Prohibition Is The Real Nuisance

December 24, 2014 Bill Piper, www.truth-out.org Educate! Law, Marijuana, Nebraska, Oklahoma

The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma have launched a lawsuit againstColorado claiming the state's 2012 voter initiative legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana is causing marijuana to come into their states, creating a public nuisance and consuming law enforcement resources. Leaving aside the fact that states, and for that matter the federal government, cannot force states to criminalize marijuana, the lawsuit gets things backwards – it is Nebraska, Oklahoma and other states with marijuana prohibition that are creating a public nuisance. As anyone who has ever taken an economics class knows, demand drives supply. If people want something, someone somewhere will make it and sell it to them. The U.S. has spent decades trying to stop marijuana and other drugs but the demand for them, like the demand for alcohol during Prohibition, ensures that they are widely available.

Fracking Impact: OK Leads Nation In Earthquakes

July 5, 2014 Brad Plumer, www.vox.com Educate! Earthquakes, Fracking, Oklahoma

Oklahoma has unexpectedly become the earthquake capital of the United States — with some 240 small earthquakes magnitude 3.0 or more already this year. That's about twice as many as California has gotten. "A new study links the earthquakes to the wastewater disposal wells" And in a new study in Science, researchers say they've pinpointed the culprit: the wastewater disposal wells used by the fracking industry. Back in 2008, energy companies began ramping up the use of fracking for oil and gas in Oklahoma. The fracking process typically involves injecting water, chemicals, and sand underground at high pressures to crack open shale rock and unlock the oil and gas inside. Fracking itself doesn't seem to be causing many earthquakes at all. However, after the well is fracked, all that wastewater needs to be pumped back out and disposed of somewhere. Since it's often laced with chemicals and difficult to treat, companies will often pump the wastewater back underground into separate disposal wells.

Unprecedented Earthquakes With Advent Of Fracking

June 19, 2014 Hailey Branson-Potts, www.latimes.com Educate! Earthquakes, Fracking, Oklahoma

When Austin Holland was being considered for his job as the sole seismologist at the Oklahoma Geological Survey in 2009, his interviewer posed a wry question: "Are you going to be able to entertain yourself as a seismologist in Oklahoma?" Back then, the state had a 30-year average of only two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or higher per year. As it turns out, though, boredom has been the least of Holland's concerns. Over the last five years, the state has had thousands of earthquakes — an unprecedented increase that has made it the second-most seismically active state in the continental United States, behind California. The state had 109 temblors measuring 3.0 or greater in 2013 — more than 5,000% above normal. There have already been more than 200 earthquakes this year, Holland said. Scientists say the more likely cause of the recent increase is underground injection wells drilled by the oil and gas industry. About 80% of the state is within nine miles of an injection well, according to the Oklahoma Geological Survey.

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