Back in November of 2015 we blogged here at Kos about a letter Public Justice (our public interest law firm) and several other top environmental lawyers in the country had sent to oil and gas companies about the earthquake epidemic in Oklahoma and Southern Kansas that was being caused by the injection of waste from fracking and oil production. On behalf of our clients, the Sierra Club, we said:
“the risk is not only that there are more frequent earthquakes; it is also that those earthquakes have been, and will continue to be, more severe.”
The companies took no action and, earlier this year, we sued. Recently, those same companies asked the court to dismiss the suit. The frackers claimed that there was no need for a law suit, because supposedly the State of Oklahoma already had the problem under control. The companies also argued “voluntary” reductions in injection they had implemented would be sufficient to eliminate the risk of earthquakes being caused by injection of fracking waste. (At best, the reductions in waste injection are explained as business as usual when taking oil prices into consideration, but it is also undeniable that they suddenly began to reduce waste injections AFTER we told them that we would sue them if they kept polluting in the same way.) Finally, the frackers asked the federal court to throw out the suit based on a new law that the industry had rushed through after it was sued; the new rule gave the State of Oklahoma formal authority to regulate fracking operations for the first time. (The statute was important to the industry effort to throw out the lawsuit – they were going to look pretty stupid asking the court to toss the lawsuit on the grounds that the state could solve all the problems, when the state didn’t even have the formal ability to do anything about the problem.)
Anyhow, when you boil all their legal arguments down, the fracking companies did not say “wow, the environmentalists are right, our fracking is causing a rapid spread of earthquakes, and more and more serious earthquakes, we need to take serious action immediately to solve the problem.” Instead, their lawyers essentially said “throw out the lawsuit, we’re going to make some mild gestures and hope the problem goes away.”
Sadly, events last weekend underscored how wrong these oil companies have been. Mild gestures are not going to make this incredibly serious problem go away. A LOT more is required. Like the relief we’re demanding in our lawsuit.
On Saturday, Oklahoma was rocked by a 5.6-magnitude quake, the state’s worst ever. Seismologists agree that this quake is almost certainly directly linked to the injection of fracking wastes in the state. It will, therefore, also go down in the record books as the largest manmade earthquake in history. This is one of those cases where we hate being right.
Following Saturday’s quake, Oklahoma officials shut down 37 injection wells that were engaged in fracking. In addition, for the first time, the EPA also took action, shutting down 17 wells on tribal land in Osage Country. But that’s not good enough. The point – as our lawsuit makes clear – is to stop earthquakes before they happen, and not to just react after the damage is done. State officials must take decisive action – right now – to curb the seismic activity unleashed by fracking. Unless and until the state does act and the earthquake epidemic is fixed, we will press forward with our lawsuit on behalf of the Sierra Club, urging the court to do what no regulator has had the guts to do: take decisive and comprehensive action before an even larger, stronger and more destructive quake hits.
Otherwise, our prediction in 2015 that “earthquakes . . . will continue to be more severe” will, unfortunately, likely be proven true again. And again.
Stay tuned for more information as our lawsuit moves forward in court.
This post was co-authored by Richard Webster, Staff Attorney with Public Justice's Environmental Enforcement Project. In addition to Public Justice, the Sierra Club is also represented by Robin Greenwald of Weitz & Luxenberg, PC, Scott Poynter of Poynter Law Group and Bill Federman of Federman & Sherwood.