Local anti-fracking advocates say the earthquake that hit Nelsonville and other parts of Southeast Ohio on Wednesday solidifies their claim that hydraulic fracturing can have dire consequences on the environment.
But seismic experts aren’t convinced of any cause-and-effect relationship between the county’s class II injection wells and the quake, which was preliminarily recorded as a magnitude 3.5.
The Athens County Fracking Action Network issued a statement Wednesday calling on the Ohio Department of Natural Resource to require a seismic survey before approving the next injection well that is drilled in Athens County, proposed by Parkersburg-based K & H Partners, LLC.
The network’s statement didn’t describe a causal relationship between the county’s six wells and the quake, but Heather Cantino, a member of the network, said she wouldn’t rule it out.
Cantino said she knew of an old well near the quake’s supposed epicenter, slightly east of Nelsonville, where leftover injection waste could have lubricated a small fault line.
Bethany McCorkle, a spokeswoman for ODNR, said she couldn’t know for sure which well Cantino was referencing, but said there is no waste in a well near the epicenter of the quake that was used for oil and natural gas until capped in 1973.
The epicenter was also too far away from an active well, said Doug Green, a geophysicist at Ohio University who studies earthquakes.
“The fact that we had (an earthquake) here in 1886 shows that these earthquakes can happen without any triggering mechanism,” Green said.
Though it would be hard to prove a direct correlation between injection wells and the earthquake, Green said it could be a possibility.
“You can’t rule it out,” he said.
ODNR seismologist Tim Leftwich said it’s cut and dry: no human disturbance played a role.
“I think we’re pretty safe in saying that it’s not associated with any injection wells,” Leftwich said.
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This article appeared in print under the headline "Expert opinion varies on correlation between fracking, recent earthquake."
