thebattalion ● wednesday,
september 2, 2009
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2009 student media
Finding fault
Traffic laws in effect Tuesday ■ College Station police begin issuing tickets for violations Rebekah Skelton The Battalion
Chesapeake Energy closed off two re-injection wells, one in Cleburne, Texas, as a precautionary measure related to recent area earthquakes. The saltwater disposal wells are used to dispose of excess salt water, which is used to fracture the ground in the gas well drilling process. Photos by Bryan H. Conner II — Special to THE BATTALION
Natural gas lines might be cause of Cleburne earthquakes Julie Rambin The Battalion Cleburne, Texas, had never seen an earthquake — until last June. Since that first quake on June 2, the town has experienced seven earthquakes, though all have been small enough not to cause damage. At the time, town officials denied a link between those quakes and the extensive natural gas drilling taking place in the area. Cleburne is situated on the Barnett Shale formation, one of the largest deposits of natural gas in the United States. To extract this gas, a well is drilled to the depth of the shale, and water is forced down the well and into the shale in a process known as hydraulic fracturing. This causes cracks in the shale and releases the trapped natural gas. The recovered saltwater is injected into disposal wells with a depth
of over 1.5 miles beneath the earth’s surface. Drilling and hydraulic fracturing may not be the source of the earthquakes, but the injection of saltwater into disposal wells could cause seismic events, said Texas A&M University geology professor Christopher Mathewson. “In order to make the disposal wells work, you want to have a porous rock unit that has void spaces in it so that you have room to store the waste units you’re disposing,” Mathewson said. “If you lack those void spaces, then the injection process makes them by breaking the rock.” The recent earthquakes may be caused by failure of the injected rock, Mathewson said. “Instead of removing fluid from the rock we increase the fluid pressure within the rock and the rock has to create a void to accept the See Earthquake on page 5
Former A&M professor to campaign for Congress Katy Ralston The Battalion Former Texas A&M professor and director of Texas A&M’s Integrative Center for Homeland Security Dave McIntyre has announced his bid for Congress, kicking off his campaign with a whirlwind of appearances throughout the district. During the opening “See the People” tour, McIntyre spent 19 hours driving 600 miles and visiting seven groups. “It’s a very hectic business, it has to be tightly coordinated because the idea is to get out to the people, which I think is very important,” McIntyre said. McIntyre is a 30-year veteran and graduate of the U.S. Army War College and the National War College, where he served as dean of faculty, educating military officers about the workings of Congress. For the past four years, he has been a professor of homeland security and terrorism at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, and
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directed the graduate Certificate in Homeland Security program. McIntyre has spent the last two decades at the war college and at A&M as a strategist specializing in why nations succeed or fail, and he said it is his background that led him to seek election. McINTRYE “As a strategist I am motivated by the fact of looking ahead and seeing the nation is in great trouble,” he said. “We have built a system that is not sustainable, we have made promises we can’t keep, we don’t have the resources to pay off the promise we’ve made.” McIntyre said he believes his time at A&M will serve as an asset to his congressional bid and term, if elected. “It helped me make contacts in Texas A&M and elsewhere with a broad range of people who have an understanding in what we need to do to
The Wright Plaza Mural on South Main Street in Cleburne, Texas, features a panel of Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne, a Civil War hero who the town was named in honor of, and the natural gas wells that populated Johnson County.
Texas began enforcing tougher driving laws Tuesday, especially for teens. Say sayonara to sitting in the backseat without being buckled, tootaloo to talking in school zones, and au revoir to your right to refuse a blood test for a suspected DWI if you already have one on record. “I think the reason these laws are being passed is because traditionally younger drivers are more likely to be in an accident,” said College Station Police Department Master Officer Rhonda Seaton. The Texas Legislature passed several new laws that pertain to driving, the first of which states that every passenger in the car must now wear a seatbelt. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, House Bill 537 requires “all occupants of a vehicle, no matter their age, to be secured by a safety belt, no matter where they are seated in the vehicle.” Senate Bill 61 amends the former law concerning child safety restraints, now saying that any child under the age of 8 or shorter than 4 feet, 9 inches in height must ride in an approved safety seat. For the first offense the fine is no more than $25 and for the second offense $250. Although the law went into effect Tuesday, drivers cannot be ticketed for this offense until June 1, 2010. Although Texas passed a law stating that cell phones may not be used in active school zones, offenders can only be ticketed if the city elects to post signs before the zoning area. College Station will not be displaying the signs, and therefore drivers will not be prosecuted. Those who are under 18 and receive their license after Sept. 1 will not be allowed to talk or text on cellular devices until they are legally considered adults. Teen drivers who received their license before Sept. 1 are still restricted from using wireless devices for the first six months. See Traffic on page 5
Code maroon upgrade Due to Code Maroon’s change in vendor Monday, and the fact that the old system is not capable of transferring contact information into the new one, those who registered to receive notifications before July 21 will need to re-register. The new alert system will send out notifications via text message, Texas A&M e-mail, KAMU-FM radio, campus cable television, Emergency Alert System radios, Twitter and RSS. “Emergencies on campus can happen at any time,” said Pierce Cantrell, vice president and provost for information technology. “Code Maroon’s advanced system helps Texas A&M University quickly notify campus members of an emergency.” All students, faculty and staff are encouraged to sign up for Code Maroon as it gives the University the ability to quickly notify campus members of health and emergency alerts. Students can register at codemaroon.tamu.edu. Rebekah Skelton, staff writer
See McIntyre on page 5
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