I was a little surprised to read that it’s considered significant news that the federal Environmental Protection Agency is linking all the extra shaking, rattling, and rolling that North Texas has undergone the last few years to oil and gas drilling activity. But the Texas Tribune reports:
Jim Bradbury, a Fort Worth-based oil and gas attorney who has closely followed the earthquake saga, said he could not recall the EPA explicitly tying Texas earthquakes to industry activity.
“It’s a big deal they said that,” he said.
Texas, home to thousands of such wells, is the third-most at-risk state for man-made earthquakes, according to the U.S. Geological Survey — behind only Oklahoma and Kansas.
Several Texas drilling regions have recently felt more earthquakes, most of them small. But temblors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have drawn the most attention, particularly those that struck in the past two years.
“EPA is concerned with the level of seismic activity during 2015 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area because of the potential to impact public health and the environment, including underground sources of drinking water,” the agency wrote.
Considering the mounting evidence, it’s hard to see reaching a different conclusion. Unless you work for the Texas Railroad Commission, it seems. The state agency in charge of regulating oil and gas still hasn’t been willing to tie any seismic activity to the industry, telling the Tribune only that it “takes the issue of induced seismicity very seriously and has in place some of the most stringent rules on disposal wells.”
