Ohio earthquake was not a natural event, expert says

2012-01-05 08:35:49

By Kim Palmer | Reuters Tue, Jan 3, 2012

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - A 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Ohio on New Year's Eve did

not occur naturally and may have been caused by high-pressure liquid injection

related to oil and gas exploration and production, an expert hired by the state

of Ohio said on Tuesday.

Ohio's Department of Natural Resources on Sunday suspended operations at five

deep well sites in Youngstown, Ohio, where the injection of water was taking

place, while they evaluate seismological data from a rare quake in the area.

The wells are about 9,000 feet deep and are used to dispose of water from oil

and gas wells. The process is related to fracking, the controversial injection

of chemical-laced water and sand into rock to release oil and gas. Critics say

that the high pressure injection of the liquid causes seismic activity.

Won-Young Kim, a research professor of Seismology Geology and Tectonophysics at

the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, told Reuters in an

interview on Tuesday that circumstantial evidence suggests a link between the

earthquake and the high-pressure well activity.

"We know the depth (of the quake on Saturday) is two miles and that is

different from a natural earthquake," said Kim, who is advising the state of

Ohio.

Data collected from four seismographs set up in November in the area confirm a

connection between the quakes and water pressure at the well, Kim said.

"There is circumstantial evidence to connect the two -- in the past we didn't

have earthquakes in the area and the proximity in the time and space of the

earthquakes matches operations at the well," he said.

A spokesman for Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, a strong supporter of oil and

gas exploration in the state, said Ohio could announce a preliminary decision

whether to continue the suspension of the wells as early as Wednesday.

The state was already looking into the cause of earlier seismic activity from

10 previous earthquakes, beginning in March, 2011.

According to Kim, this is not the first time Ohio tremors have been linked to

human activities. "We have several examples of earthquakes from deep well

disposal in the past," Kim said.

A quake of 4.2 magnitude in Ashtabula, Ohio, on January 26, 2001, was believed

to be due to deep-well injection, he said. And in 1987 there was an incident

with a correlation to high pressure deep well injection, he said.

There are 177 so-called "class two" deep wells in Ohio, according to Tom

Stewart, executive vice president of Ohio Oil and Gas Association. They all

operate under federal guidelines spelled out by the Clean Water Act.

There is no evidence that the wells in Youngstown were operating at higher

pressures than allowed, Stewart said.

"We haven't seen anything from anyone at (the state agency) that would lead us

to believe that the well was not operating properly," he said.

Kim said that even though the wells have stopped pumping water into the rock,

the area might not have experienced its last earthquake. "It could take a

couple of years for the earthquakes to go away. The migration of the fluid

injected into the rock takes a long time to leave," Kim said.

Ohio's Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, said the quick response by the state

shows it is a serious issue.

"There are things we need to know about drilling and earthquakes," Brown told

Reuters on Tuesday.

Brown said he supports new energy exploration that brings jobs to the state but

has questions about how companies will handle fracking and wastewater disposal.

"They have got to answer the question of what they are going to do with the

waste just like nuclear power," Brown said.

(Editing by Greg McCune and Jim Marshall)