Ohio Links Fracking With Earthquakes, Announces Tougher Rules
Hilcorp Energy, the company that was drilling near the quakes in Poland Township in March, cannot resume operations until it submits a new plan convincing regulators that drilling is safe, an agency spokesman said. Hilcorp was not immediately available to comment.
The department had not previously linked earthquakes to fracking, which involves fracturing rock by creating a series of small blasts thousands of feet below the surface, but the new data gave it "reasonable certainty" that fracking was the cause, the agency spokesman said.
"It is significant that they have acknowledged that there is a connection between fracking and earthquakes," said Ray Beiersdorfer, professor of geology at Youngstown State University in Ohio.
The disposal of drilling wastewater in rockbed deep underground has been linked by geologists to earthquakes, sucah as the 4.0 magnitude one experienced on New Year's Eve 2011 in Youngstown, but opinion is divided about whether fracking itself can cause quakes, and if it can trigger more than just small tremors.
While there are concerns about the environmental impact of injecting chemical-laced water into the ground, including on freshwater supplies, they are spreading to include the effect on fault lines than run beneath the surface, often undetected.
Worries surrounding seismic activity emerged in Ohio in 2011 when a spate of small quakes followed the beginning of intensive drilling in the Utica shale. More than 800 wells have been drilled in the Ohio portions of the Utica and the Marcellus shales, two major gas deposits that have helped transform the U.S. energy market. Once a regular importer of gas from overseas, the United States is set to export gas for the first time to countries across the globe.
"The steps announced today to protect communities from seismic events are reasonable precautions," said Scott Anderson, a policy advisor at the Environmental Defense Fund. "Although there is much uncertainty regarding what causes earthquakes ... the state's decisive action is based on the best information available."
(Reporting By Edward McAllister; Editing by Alden Bentley)
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