4.4 earthquake near La Sal on Jan. 23

NORTHERN NEWS
by Maxine Deeter
Did you feel that?  Me neither!  We’ve had seismic activity in our area before and some feel the movement and other don’t.  I did not feel anything Wednesday night, but seismic activity was definitely recorded east of La Sal.
As I’ve mentioned previously in this column, La Sal has a state of the art observatory.  This was constructed eight to ten years ago by Don and Janet Curley on the south side of La Sal.
They also host on their property a seismic monitoring station operated by the University of Utah.  Don sent along this report late Wednesday night:  “I wanted to report an earthquake that occurred at 9:46 p.m. tonight. The epicenter was 15 miles due east of La Sal, and the preliminary magnitude was 4.4 (local magnitude).
“My wife and I both felt the quake and would characterize the shaking motion as moderate with a perceived duration of approximately 20 seconds.”
Don also sent a .jpg of the seismic graph, as well as maps of the location and other interesting data.  It is available on the San Juan Record website.
Holy Frack!  Does that sound like a good swear word.  Well, “frack” is just that to many concerned citizens.  It is the practice of injecting fluid underground to “fracture” the rock layers and cause a bigger release of oil or gas. 
I found this quote in the Grand Junction Sentinel regarding our earthquake last week:  “Though a precise connection can’t yet be drawn, all signs are pointing to a deep-well injection project by the Bureau of Reclamation as the genesis of an unusually large earthquake felt…”
Now, this water injection was not done for fraking purposes, but rather might have been caused by the high pressure injection of brine 16,000 into the earth.  The well is part of a project that removes excess salt from the Colorado and Dolores rivers.  It just reminds us that “It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature”.  You just never know what you might initiate.
A total of about 20 folks attended the concealed weapons training on Sunday afternoon at the Community Center.  The instructor was very good and had answers to a lot of questions. 
Information was available on how to proceed with obtaining a permit, including current passport type photos and the costs associated with obtaining the permit.  Everyone was also able to be fully fingerprinted as part of the application process.  There are 38 states which recognize Utah’s permit. 
This is just an observation, but watching the national news and also hearing discussions from local folks, the development of U. S. gun control measures are going to be an interesting thing to see. 
I have to say personally, that I’m in the same boat as Marsha Jensen (see her column in last week’s SJR), but I’d say the majority of Westerners will not be giving up their firearms.  A lot of compromise will have to go into the development of this policy. 
Now that the holidays are behind us and we can move on with our regular lives, it is time for the next reading and discussion for the La Sal Literary Guild.  It is great weather anyway for a good curled up in front of the fire with a good book. 
The selection for our next discussion is “Three Cups of Tea” which is a non-fiction read.  The subject is the building of schools in the poorest parts of Pakistan. 
It has been a very interesting read and shows the determination of some of the world’s most underprivileged kids to obtain and education.  It also is probably the a good front on which to fight terrorism. 
The group will meet for discussion on February 12 at 7 p.m. at the Community Center/Library.  I’ll guarantee – there will also be food!!
Along these lines, the rumor (actually more than just a rumor) that our local library will have expanded hours this summer.  Our local librarian gets a lot of praise at the County Library Board meetings for the way our little library has been such an asset to our community. 
The folks on the community recreation board are planning an all ladies activity night scheduled for February 9 at 7 p.m.  More details should be forthcoming in the next couple of weeks and I will pass those along.  I’m sure there will be flyers at La Sal Central with more info.
This weekend’s storms brought more than an inch of moisture to our locale.  We may be able to shower this summer after all.  Maybe even water the lawn and garden.  The seed catalogs are coming in the mail – must be time to dream of Spring.