In Oklahoma, one of the peer-reviewed papers was written by Katie Keranen, a seismologist who was working at the University of Oklahoma in 2011 when that state suffered its most powerful recorded earthquake. At 5.7 magnitude, a monster by Oklahoma standards, it damaged more than 200 hundred homes, although only two people were injured.
Keranen wrote that she found “a compelling link between the zone of injection and the seismicity.”
The Oklahoma Geological Survey, a state agency, rejected her findings.
Keranen, who has since moved on to Cornell University, would not discuss her paper further. But an online news story published earlier this month has again raised the question of government interference in proving a link between injection wells and quakes.
The March 3 story by Mike Soraghan, with Environment and Energy Publishing’s eenews.net, alleges that some Oklahoma officials knew of the connection between injection wells and earthquakes as early as 2010 but kept the information quiet at the request of gas companies.
In the story, Soraghan wrote that he obtained e-mails showing that an Oklahoma state seismologist, Austin Holland, “told a senior U.S. Geological Survey official that as far back as 2010, Oklahoma Geological Survey officials believed that an earthquake swarm near Oklahoma City might have been triggered” by an injection well east of the city. Shortly after his meeting with the officials, Holland was “called into a meeting with his boss, University of Oklahoma President David Boren, and oil executives who were concerned about the acknowledgement,” Soraghan’s story said.
Holland’s information subsequently went nowhere.
The Oklahoma geological agency still maintains that disposal wells are not the primary cause of the earthquakes that have been plaguing Oklahoma. Between 1975 and 2008, one to three quakes (of a magnitude of 3 or higher) a year were recorded in Oklahoma. The numbers began going up dramatically in 2009, and last year 585 such quakes were recorded.
After a swarm of more than 2,500 quakes near Jones, Okla., in 2014, the USGS issued a release that noted: “This rise in seismic activity, especially in the central United States, is not the result of natural processes. Deep injection of wastewater is the primary cause of the dramatic rise in detected earthquakes and the corresponding increase in seismic hazard in the central U.S.”
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Greedheads are going to be greed-heads. Liars are liars. Repug Peckerwoods can be expected to remain Repug Peckerwoods. What’s new here?
Benny: You’re right. But we still do it because we learn about the issues first here in Fort Worth, and that is what gets out–along with the other nearby writers and activists–to New York and what they use as a basis for not allowing fracking. And it gets to Romania and England and Denmark and Germany—so you’re right, it’s not new that greed is greed, but the fault line issue is new enough and important enough to alert both our readers and others who have a stake in the game but didn’t know this issue existed.
Mr. Gorman, you’re absolutely right. I agree 100% with your reasoning and regret my wise-crack. My hat is off to you, Sir, and to Fort Worth Weekly. I am much more than certain that, may God forbid, if Fort Worth somehow lost the Weekly, we could never recover. You are very clearly an endearing piece of the Weekly and the Weekly is an outstanding accomplishment. May ya’ll live long and prosper. God bless you.
Hey Peter, I just snapped. Lynda Stokes, the Mayor over in Reno is my neighbor and customer at my fire-cracker stand out in Briar Tx., on the County Line. I can chunk a rock and hit her. I’m in big trouble now because I don’t know of a single soul in Reno, Briar, Parker County or Wise County who vote Democrat. I expect I’m sunk.
Thank you for your article. This is a topic that should be front page news on every paper! Please keep us posted. Natural gas an it’s horrific impact on our environment cannot be understated, we’re just oblivious to what our future holds. We need to wake up!
Not sure which injection well Ms. Wallace is referring to as being “re-opened.” There are no injection wells near the epicenter of the Irving/Dallas Earthquakes. But there are two unconventional wells that are in the immediate area of the earthquake zone. And prior to the implementation of the 2011 Fracking Disclosure Bill, there were no rules for operators to disclose the amount of water used for fracking operations. Unknown amounts of water were used to frack these two wells in 2008 and 2009. Sure do wish Ms. Wallace would tell us who told her that an injection well “re-opened.”