The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has banned fracking disposal wells for unconventional gas drilling wastes due to earthquakes. The Commission voted unanimously to ban them, and the decision requires the immediate closure of one disposal well and prohibits the construction of new wells within a 1,150 square mile radius.
Arkansas residents insisted that there was a correlation between the increase in earthquake activity in the state and wastewater disposal wells. Imagine being on your way out one afternoon, opening your garage door, and experiencing an earthquake that you knew was being caused by gas drills.
After monitoring hundreds of earthquakes, investigators have begun to conform the connection between unconventional gas-related drilling and the quakes. The Oil and Gas Commission discovered that four disposal wells were located on a fault line responsible for dozens of earthquakes.
As reported by the Associated Press, “after two of the four [disposal wells] stopped operating in March, there was a sharp decline in the number of earthquakes. In the 18 days before the shutdown, there were 85 quakes with a magnitude 2.5 or greater, but there were only 20 in the 18 days following the shutdown, according to the state Geological Survey.”
The local press had reported “a shocking surge” in quake activity prior to the wells being shut down. The number of earthquakes recorded in Arkansas for 2010 — more than 600 — nearly equals all of Arkansas’ quakes for the past 100 years.