THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

So you have made $Billions in the oil & gas business and as a loyal alumni of Oklahoma U you have given large sums to your alma mater. And somewhere along the way you have become convinced that your shit doesn't stink. So what do you do when part of your old school has determined that fracking and waste water injection have made your state Number 1 in earthquakes in the US. A reasonable person might seek a solution to the problem. Someone whose shit doesn't stink would do this.

Oil tycoon Harold Hamm told a University of Oklahoma dean last year that he wanted certain scientists there dismissed who were studying links between oil and gas activity and the state's nearly 400-fold increase in earthquakes, according to the dean's e-mail recounting the conversation.

Hamm, the billionaire founder and chief executive officer of Oklahoma City-based Continental Resources, is a major donor to the university, which is the home of the Oklahoma Geological Survey. He has vigorously disputed the notion that he tried to pressure the survey's scientists. "I'm very approachable, and don't think I'm intimidating," Hamm was quoted as saying in an interview with EnergyWire, an industry publication, that was published on May 11. "I don't try to push anybody around."

Yet an e-mail obtained from the university by Bloomberg News via a public records request says Hamm used a blunt approach during a 90-minute meeting last year with the dean whose department includes the geological survey.

"Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed," wrote Larry Grillot, the dean of the university's Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, in a July 16, 2014, e-mail to colleagues at the university. Hamm also expressed an interest in joining a search committee charged with finding a new director for the geological survey, according to Grillot's e-mail. And, the dean wrote, Hamm indicated that he would be "visiting with Governor [Mary] Fallin on the topic of moving the OGS out of the University of Oklahoma."

On a positive note, neither the University nor the Governor seems to have given in to the Hamm handed efforts of Big Daddy Oilbucks. Hopefully the light of day on his efforts will restrain any further efforts until he does us the favor of dying.