Feds Link Raton-area Quakes to Fracking

Colorado Regulators Call for More Study

DENVER — Recent earthquakes in northern New Mexico and elsewhere were induced by a drilling procedure to dispose of wastewater, federal geologists planned to argue in a report announced Wednesday.

Colorado drilling regulators said more study is needed on the link between drilling waste disposal and the uptick in earthquakes, according to The Denver Post. Nevertheless, regulators in Colorado have started to look for seismic risk in permit reviews.

A report released Wednesday at a gathering of the American Geophysical Union says an increase in earthquakes in the Raton Basin in northern New Mexico and Colorado and elsewhere is tied to disposal wells where oil and gas drilling wastewater is injected. Drilling companies use disposal wells to bury brine water and chemical waste that result from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

A 5.3-magnitude earthquake near Raton last year triggered minor rock slides, toppled chimneys and cracked walls. No one was hurt. The quake followed injection of 4.9 million cubic meters of wastewater.

And on Tuesday, a 3.9-magnitude earthquake was recorded about 20 miles west of Cokedale, Colo., northwest of Raton near the New Mexico border. The temblor was reported by the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, but no damage was immediately reported.

The wastewater report should prompt discussion of disposal wells, said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Justin Rubinstein, co-author of the report.

“This is a societal risk you

need to be considering,” Rubinstein told The Post.

A USGS team based in Menlo Park, Calif., found that the quake in Colorado and a damaging 5.6-magnitude quake in Oklahoma both were induced by disposal of fracking waste underground.

From 1970 to 2001, five quakes of magnitude 3 or higher were recorded in the Raton Basin. Scientists counted 95 quakes of at least magnitude 3 between 2001 and 2011 and concluded that oil and gas operations caused the majority, if not all, of the quakes since 2001.

Although the evidence is convincing that deep burial of drilling waste can trigger quakes, it also appears that few of the 40,000 disposal wells nationwide have done so, Rubinstein said.

“But I don’t think blowing this off is a good idea,” he said. “It’s a problem we need to understand. There’s been millions of dollars of damage. If you trigger bigger earthquakes, there’s a possibility of worse outcomes.”

The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which is responsible for regulating and promoting the industry, asked state geologists last year to review all permits for new disposal wells to assess earthquake risk, said Vince Matthews, director of the Colorado Geological Survey.

Of the 330 or so disposal wells, 35 have been analyzed. Geologists recommended that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission tell some operators that if any small quakes are detected, the operators should pay close attention and install additional seismic sensors, Matthews said.

State criteria include whether quakes have happened before near a well, fault lines in the area and the direction of cracks in rock.

The federal scientists may be jumping to conclusions, Matthews said.

“I don’t think they’re nuts. I just think it is premature,” he said. “We’re gathering data that is going to help us understand what is going on down there.”