OKLAHOMA GROUPS SEEK MORATORIUM ON WELLS DUE TO EARTHQUAKES

By TONI ELLINGTON

A coalition of environmental and advocacy groups is calling for a moratorium on wastewater injection wells in Oklahoma due to recent reports that the wells may have triggered earthquakes.

Coalition members included Clean Energy Future Oklahoma, Oklahoma Sierra Club, Stop Fracking Payne County, the NAACP, and Peace House Oklahoma City. The groups traveled to the state capitol to deliver signed petitions to Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin.

The Oklahoma Geological Survey (“OGS”) released a statement on April 21, 2015, that it was “very likely” that most of the recent earthquakes in the state were triggered by subsurface injection of wastewater from oil and gas drilling operations. According to the OGS, the hundreds of earthquakes which have occurred recently in central and north-central Oklahoma are not very likely to represent a naturally occurring process. The pace of oil and gas drilling has accelerated in these areas of the state.

Earthquake activity in Oklahoma in 2013 was 70 times greater than earthquake activity in 2008. Spokesmen for the coalition groups described damage to homes from recent earthquakes and urged the Governor and the Oklahoma legislature to act rather than wait for the oil and gas industry to propose a solution.

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