Through an in-depth investigation, the paper revealed embarrassing details of the train’s lurching progress toward an apparent morass of spiraling costs, spooked investors and — worst of all — an engineering disaster in the making.

Heads in the sand

In one particularly galling example of misfeasance, when California’s main project management contractor, Parsons Brinckerhoff, raised the alarm years ago, it was simply ignored by the authority’s top brass. A document obtained by the Times revealed that Parsons Brinckerhoff had briefed state officials on the spiraling cost projections in October of 2013. “But the state used a lower cost estimate when it issued its 2014 business plan four months later,” noted the Times. “Jeff Morales, the rail authority chief executive, said he was not aware of the Parsons Brinckerhoff projection. A spokeswoman for the authority declined to discuss the differences in the estimates.”

Opposition to California’s high-speed rail project has been strong since Gov. Jerry Brown first threw his weight firmly behind the idea. Critics have predictably held up the Times report as proof that they saw its failures coming from a figurative mile away. As the Reason Foundation suggested as early as 2008, “cost overruns were likely, state and federal funding would not be sufficient to cover the costs of the project, the state would have to spend more money, and private investors would not be making up the difference,” as Scott Shackford noted at Reason.com.

A policy earthquake

The challenges revealed by the report go far beyond those objections, however, raising the specter of dangerous environmental damage done virtually blind. “It will be the most ambitious tunneling project in U.S. history. Crews will have to cross the tectonic boundary that separates the North American and Pacific plates, boring through rock formations and earthquake faults, some of which are not mapped,” the San Francisco Chronicle noted. James Monsees, “one of the world’s top tunneling experts and an author of the federal manual on highway tunneling,” said the plan was unrealistic. “Faults are notorious for causing trouble,” he cautioned.

That trouble could well become calamitous — especially given California’s propensity for large earthquakes affecting populations centers. As the Los Angeles Times added:

“A 2012 report by Parsons Brinckerhoff, obtained by The Times, warned the rail authority that the ‘seismotectonic complexity … may be unprecedented’ and that the rail route would be crossing faults classified as ‘hazardous.'”

But the tunnel trouble arose from the authority’s inability to surmount public criticism to easier, more direct routes. “The original plan was to build the train route up along the 14 Freeway, but a host of nearby residents from Pacoima to Acton, many freaked out about a high-walled train corridor cutting through their towns,” according to Curbed Los Angeles. “Angry citizens in San Fernando even interrupted an informational meeting in on the rail project to protest its dangers to the local economy and the ‘death wall’ that would split the town in two along the route.”

That led the authority toward the current, disparaged tunneling plan — and, last month, a request for “permission to test-drill deep beneath the Angeles National Forest to determine the feasibility of digging a rail tunnel through the rugged San Gabriel Mountains near Santa Clarita,” as the San Gabriel Valley Tribune noted. Among officials, the fear of another public outcry has yet to abate. “In what only can be described as an unusual process, the U.S. Forest Service is asking the public for their thoughts on whether to allow the rail authority to proceed with its tunnel study,” the Tribune added.

Now a 30 percent tax break might be given to those retrofitting older buildings to make them quake-proof. Assembly Bill 428 is by Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian, D-Sherman Oaks, and would grant the tax credit “for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2016, and before January 1, 2021.”

The bill is being supported by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. The Los Angeles Times quoted him:

“We as a city cannot do this alone,” Garcetti told reporters at a news conference Wednesday on the steps of Van Nuys City Hall. “This is a common-sense bill that will set forward a pathway to help building owners, to help landlords and tenants alike, to create a safer and a greater Golden State”….

The dangers of concrete buildings have been known since the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, when hospital buildings were destroyed. As many as 50 of the more than 1,000 concrete buildings across the city would collapse in a big earthquake, The Times reported in 2013. …

The retrofits could cost as much as $130,000 for wooden apartments and millions for taller concrete buildings.

The bill also is supported by the Apartment Association. of Greater Los Angeles.

The problem with such tax rebates, though, is that they come at the expense of the rest of the state budget. Unless the Legislature cuts spending in other areas, taxes must be raised in other areas to make up the deficit.

Politics is the art of trade-offs. Even something as important as preventing earthquakes is but a part of the equation.

A new 2013 study conducted by the University of Durham in the United Kingdom dispels the widespread contention that fracking is a major threat to triggering large earthquakes in California and the U.S.  Fracking is the hydraulic fracturing of subsurface rock formations to extract oil and gas by various chemical methods used since 1947, as distinguished from using steam.

The study is titled, “Induced Seismicity and Hydraulic Fracturing for the Recovery of Hydrocarbons,” was conducted by  Richard Davies, PhD. It reported that, of 198 human-induced earthquakes since 1929, only one was indirectly related to oil and gas fracking itself.

The major cause of the fracking-related earthquakes, on the other hand, was not related to fracking operations, but the disposal of fracking and shale gas wastewater required by toxic waste disposal laws.

No fracking earthquakes in California in 66 years

Based on the Durham study and other online data sources, only 10 human-induced major earthquakes from all causes occurred in California over an 84-year time span concurrent with rapid industrialization (see table below).  None was from fracking per se.

           Human-Caused Earthquakes in California and Worldwide (1929 to 2013)

Four California man-made earthquakes were from subsurface water pressurization related to dams and reservoirs, three were from geothermal power plants, and three were from oil and gas extraction not related to fracking.

In addition to the Durham study, only three other fracking related earthquakes could be found in the world, one of which occurred in the U.S.  No fracking-related earthquakes are reported to have occurred in California.

The Durham University study considered an alleged fracking earthquake in Ohio in 2013 (up to 2.7 magnitude).  Omitted from the Durham University study was a quake in Oklahoma in 2011 (reported from 4.1 or 5.6 magnitude). Both the Ohio and Oklahoma earthquake swarms were caused by mandated deep reinjection of fracking wastewater into the ground to comply with state toxic waste disposal laws. Two other alleged fracking-related earthquakes occurred in Canada in 2009 and Great Britain in 2011.

Three fracking quakes worldwide out of 85 million earthquakes

To put this into greater perspective, the UC Berkeley Seismology Laboratory reports there were 558,434 total earthquakes greater than 1.0 from 1990 to 2011 in California alone.  Of earthquakes with a magnitude of 2.0 or larger, 25,383 were recorded and analyzed each year on average.  That reflects 2,115 earthquakes per month, 448 per week, and 70 per day in California.

About six to seven 5.0+ magnitude earthquakes occur each year on average in California.  Earthquakes of 5.0 in magnitude or with acceleration of 2 g’s (gravity force) are considered at the threshold at which damages to large lifeline infrastructure can occur.

There are about 1,300,000 earthquakes annually in the world over 2.0 in magnitude. Fracking technology began in 1947.  Of the 85,800,000 estimated earthquakes that have occurred worldwide since 1947, possibly only four have been confirmed as indirectly caused by disposal of wastewater from fracking.  Fracking has been unregulated in California for 60 years.

California recently passed Senate Bill 4 to regulate fracturing of subsurface rock formations by fracking or “acidization.” 

CA launches European-like earthquake prediction bureaucracy?

On Sept. 23, 2013, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 135 to build and operate in five years a statewide earthquake prediction system at a cost of $80 million. The impetus for this law was a 2013 study conducted by Caltech and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology that found a statewide earthquake involving both Los Angeles and San Francisco metropolitan areas may be possible.

A recent study by UC Santa Cruz seismologist Emily Brodsky indicates that small, localized earthquakes from geothermal power plants, and possibly fracking, could be forecasted. But a 2012 study of the PXP Inglewood Oilfield using data from Caltech sensors found no seismic activity from fracking or fracking water disposal. Experts generally agree that there is little likelihood of dangerous earthquakes generated by fracking in the Monterey Shale Formation in California.

The California Office of Emergency Services, Caltech, California Geological Survey, University of California and U.S. Geological Survey already operate the California Integrated Seismic Network, which reportedly has earthquake early warning capabilities.

No appropriation from the California General Fund was authorized under SB135.  Instead, SB135 is looking for funding from the debt-plagued Federal government.  Revenues from oil and gas companies and geothermal power plant operators may be a likely target for funding the new system. To do that, fracking and geothermal related earthquakes may have to be sold to the public as a high risk.

On October 22, an Italian court convicted seven seismologists from its “Great Risks Commission” of manslaughter for providing “false assurances” of no earthquake risk involving the L’Aquila Earthquake that killed over 300 people.

This raises the question whether California’s earthquake forecast system would be prone to politicization, as with the model in Italy.

                  Human Induced Earthquakes in California (and other quakes)