Trahan: To rule out oil and gas activity as earthquake cause is not credible

I’m sitting at my desk in my office across from Lee Park in Dallas when the entire building begins to sway back and forth as if a real-life giant were shaking it to see what would fall down. Instant recognition: I had just experienced my first earthquake. Then a few hours later, at home relaxing on the couch, another earthquake rattles our apartment. Yikes.

That night I asked myself, how long will it be until someone attempts to officially declare that the quakes are completely unrelated to fracking?

The answer was nine days. At a Jan. 15 Irving City Council meeting, the Texas Railroad Commission’s Craig Pearson testified, “The evidence points to no involvement of oil and gas activities.” That same day, his Op-Ed in The Dallas Morning News self-assuredly proclaimed that, while we don’t know what’s behind these earthquakes, he knows that his industry isn’t to blame? Sorry, that simply isn’t credible.

Introductions may be appropriate. The Texas Railroad Commission is the state agency in charge of overseeing oil and gas operations in Texas, including fracking and related activities. The Railroad Commission currently functions as a “captured” agency, or one that is controlled by the industry it is supposed to regulate. Think “serve and protect.”

Consider this: The Texas Railroad Commission has always denied that oil and gas activities, including fracking and its associated wastewater injection wells, have ever caused earthquakes. That’s just the opposite of what actual scientists have been saying for over 50 years. Geologists have known since the 1960s that hazardous waste injection wells can and do cause earthquakes, and recent scientific research has shown that fracking itself can cause tremors as well. This is why the Southern Methodist University seismologists who attended the Irving meeting indicated that oil and gas activities are indeed one possible explanation of what’s behind our recent swarm of quakes.

The industry lapdog state agency has declared that gas drilling activities can’t possibly be behind this because there are no active fracking sites or wastewater injection wells nearby. But again, scientific research tells a more complicated story. As it turns out, scientists now say that both fracking and wastewater injection wells can cause seismic activity miles away from surface locations and years after original operations.

Let that sink in for a minute. All those fracking fluids that get injected underground at high volumes and pressures can migrate over time and cause future consequences, not just immediate effects. We don’t need a smoking-gun-style active injection well right in the middle of the earthquake epicenters to suspect that past oil and gas activities could be to blame.

Scientists have not claimed to know for certain that fracking activities are behind these current earthquakes. That being said, it’s unscientific, unrealistic, irresponsible, misleading and frankly ridiculous for state officials to say they somehow already know that oil and gas activities are not to blame.

For anyone interested in the truth as we move forward, I suggest that you ignore the Railroad Commission and instead pay close attention to the research being done at SMU and the U.S. Geological Survey with regard to human-induced earthquakes in North Texas. And you might want to get yourself some good insurance, just in case.

One more thing. A number of area cities, including Dallas and Fort Worth, have passed local ordinances to keep fracking wastewater injection wells outside of their city limits, in part to protect their residents from potential earthquakes.

Predictably, industry lobbyists are asking state legislators to pass new laws to override such ordinances and strip away our right to local control. Now is a good time to contact your state senator and state representative and explain that local control is not up for negotiation. If you don’t already know who represents you at the state Capitol, find out at www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us. Don’t get rattled. Get organized.

Zac Trahan is D/FW program director of the Texas Campaign for the Environment.