{"id":18039,"date":"2016-02-20T10:10:10","date_gmt":"2016-02-20T15:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18039"},"modified":"2016-02-20T10:11:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-20T15:11:44","slug":"lawsuit-filed-over-oklahomas-fracking-earthquakes-as-its-third-largest-quake-is-felt-in-7-other-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=18039","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit Filed Over Oklahoma\u2019s \u2018Fracking\u2019 Earthquakes as Its Third Largest Quake Is Felt in 7 Other States"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Lawsuit Filed Over Oklahoma\u2019s \u2018Fracking\u2019 Earthquakes as Its Third Largest Quake Is Felt in 7 Other States<\/a><\/h3>\n
The\u00a0Sierra Club<\/a>\u00a0and the public interest law firm\u00a0Public Justice<\/a>\u00a0have filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against three\u00a0energy companies\u00a0engaged in hydraulic fracturing, aka\u00a0fracking<\/a>, in Oklahoma.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

The suit<\/a>\u00a0against New Dominion, Chesapeake Operating and Devon Energy Production Company\u00a0alleges that\u00a0wastewater from\u00a0fracking<\/a>\u00a0and oil production have contributed to the state\u2019s alarming\u00a0spike in\u00a0earthquake activity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"okearthquakesinjectionwells\"<\/span>
Map of Oklahoma. The orange dots represent the number of earthquakes with a magnitude of 3.0 and higher from 2010 to date. The blue dots represent the state\u2019s wastewater disposal wells. Photo credit:\u00a0Earthquakes in Oklahoma<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The lawsuit\u00a0demands the companies, as a first step, to \u201creduce, immediately and substantially, the amounts of production waste they are injecting into the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed the same day that the Oklahoma Corporation Commission made their largest push yet to curb the state\u2019s seismic activity. According to the\u00a0Associated Press<\/a>, the state\u2019s oil and gas regulator\u00a0ordered operators of nearly 250 injection wells to reduce the amount of wastewater they inject underground.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The commission released a plan that covers more than 5,200 square miles in northwest Oklahoma and called for a reduction of more than 500,000 barrels of wastewater daily, or about 40 percent less than previous levels, the AP reported.<\/p>\n

The commission\u2019s measure comes three days after a\u00a05.1 magnitude earthquake shook northwest Oklahoma. Not only was the quake felt in seven other states, it\u2019s\u00a0the third-strongest temblor ever recorded in the state, the\u00a0U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)\u00a0said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout knowing more specifics about the wastewater injection and oil and gas production in this area, the USGS cannot conclude whether or not this particular earthquake was caused by industrial-related, human activities,\u201d the agency\u00a0said. \u201cHowever, we do know that many earthquakes in the area have been triggered by wastewater fluid injection.\u201d<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lawsuit Filed Over Oklahoma\u2019s \u2018Fracking\u2019 Earthquakes as Its Third Largest Quake Is Felt in 7 Other States The\u00a0Sierra Club\u00a0and the public interest law firm\u00a0Public Justice\u00a0have filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against three\u00a0energy companies\u00a0engaged in hydraulic fracturing, aka\u00a0fracking, in Oklahoma. The suit\u00a0against New Dominion, Chesapeake Operating and Devon Energy Production Company\u00a0alleges that\u00a0wastewater from\u00a0fracking\u00a0and oil production have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[12510,12511,222,8375,331,412,5903,12507,12509,595,2826,12508,3917,1005],"class_list":["post-18039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-chesapeake-operating","tag-devon-energy-production-company","tag-earthquakes","tag-ecowatch","tag-fracking","tag-hydraulic-fracturing","tag-lawsuit","tag-lorraine-chow","tag-new-dominion","tag-oil-production","tag-oklahoma","tag-public-justice","tag-sierra-club","tag-wastewater"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18039"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18041,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18039\/revisions\/18041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}