SMU confirms fracking waste likely caused quakes that damaged Azle homes & businesses

Statement of Earthworks organizer Sharon Wilson

"Industry's own literature, the US Geological Survey, and now SMU all declare that fracking waste injection causes earthquakes. It is only Texas state regulators and lawmakers who are living in denial.

If HB40 becomes law, the state will make cities' attempts to protect their residents from fracking-related earthquakes illegal. HB40's author, Drew Darby, refused an amendment that would allow cities to ban fracking wastewater disposal wells.

Cities across the state should be very very worried for another reason. Hundreds of thousands of concrete oil and gas well casings are what stands between Texas communities and well leaks. Quakes that can crack foundations as they did in Azle can also crack concrete oil and gas well casings, active and abandoned, that go deep into the earth."

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• SMU's full report investigating the source of Azle-area earthquakes, published in Nature Communications, may be accessed online at http://dx.doi.org/ by entering the DOI number: 10.1038/ncomms7728.
• Overview of fracking-related earthquakes: http://bit.ly/1Pc2hkq