National Science Foundation

In September of 2001 between 15 and 20 million dollars was set aside by the National Science Foundation to study earthquakes under the name of the name of the ‘George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES)’.
It is supposed to provide a national resource that will shift the emphasis of earthquake engineering research from current reliance on physical testing to integrated experimentation, computation, theory, databases, and model-based simulation.
NEES was supposed to :
Include approximately 20 major earthquake engineering experimental research equipment installations networked through the high performance Internet.
Be developed by September 30, 2004.
Be operational through September 30, 2014.
December 2004 is upon us and we can look at the awards list at :
http://www.eng.nsf.gov/nees/Awards/awards.htm
What is shown there are monies for ‘shake tables’ that were purchased around the country – each one cost about 2,000 dollars.
For the University of Illinois at Urbana, however, one Thomas I. Prudhomme has taken a charge for exactly 10 million dollars.
http://www.digitalgovernment.org/search/members/member.jsp?ID=80
A ‘consortium’ of Universities for Research in Earthquake Engineering, made up of one Robert Reitherman is taking a charger for about 10 dollars below 2 million.
What are these men up to? Apparently their award is based on their promise that they will spend the money.
British Petroleum is preparing to investigate the feasibility of operating carbon dioxide deep injection wells throughout Texas. Why hasn’t anyone looked again at the evidence of earthquakes being caused by High Pressure Injection Wells?
For more than 30 years the Environmental Protection Agency has been running a business by arranging permits for Type I injection wells around the country. Over 700,000 injection wells are in operation at this time.
Hundreds of them are injecting highly toxic chemical waste into the earth.
About 8% of them have failed and a number of them have produced earthquakes.
The National Science Foundation is allowing tens of millions of dollars to be stolen off the table for what? To shake some tables and put the results on the internet?
I think these two projects need to be reviewed very closely.
The National Science information is at : http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2001/nsf01164/nsf01164.html
The awards information is at :
http://www.eng.nsf.gov/nees/Awards/awards.htm
The EPA Underground Injection Control Program is at :
http://www.epa.gov/safewater/uic/