Oil companies sued over quakes
Oklahoma residents are suing several petroleum companies they say have been causing damaging earthquakes across the state.
The lawsuit filed this week comes a month after a 5.0-magnitude quake damaged homes and buildings near Cushing, Okla. Cushing, a small town between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, is home to a major oil storage facility. State officials said about 30 homes were damaged, and the new class-action lawsuit names multiple oil companies as defendants.
The lawsuit was filed by the same firm that helped the Sierra Club bring a similar lawsuit against other companies for similar damages elsewhere in Oklahoma. All of the lawsuits remain pending, and ask judges to order the oil companies to pay for the damages and install better monitoring systems.
Experts say the quakes are likely being caused by oil companies pumping contaminated water deep underground after pumping it out of newly fracked oil and gas wells. Unlike many other areas, underground oil in Oklahoma is usually found mixed with water, and the only way to get the oil out is to also withdraw the water.
Scientists have long known that deep-injection wells can cause earthquakes, likely by lubricating dormant fault lines and making them slip. While the connection between the amount of water pumped down, and at what pressure, remains unclear, there’s a growing consensus the disposal wells are causing quakes in a state that never used to have so many.
“These are human-induced earthquakes, not an act of God,” said Curt Marshall, an attorney with the firm Weitz & Luxenberg, which filed the class-action suit. “When they started injecting deep and in massive amounts, you see a dramatic increase.”
Oil and gas companies say injection wells are an inexpensive way to dispose of the contaminated water, and argue the vast majority of wells cause no problems. State regulators have begun clamping down on these injection wells, and last month said they’ve restricted the use of about 700 wells covering about 11,000 square miles.