By Wire Reports
(Feb. 17) – The nation’s largest environmental organization is suing three oil and gas companies in Oklahoma and Kansas, claiming that their fracking efforts are triggering earthquakes.
Bloomberg News reports that the Sierra Club filed a federal lawsuit in Oklahoma City accusing Chesapeake Energy Corp., Devon Energy Production Co. and New Dominion of triggering tremors in the two states.
The injection of liquid oil and gas waste into deep ground-wells caused a significant increase of earthquakes, the lawsuit claims.
Sierra Club lawyers claim that there were at least 5,800 earthquakes in Oklahoma last year – compared to a previous high 167 during the previous three decades.
The lawsuit states that the three oil and gas firms “have contributed and continue to contribute to the increased seismicity triggered by the waste handling, transport, and disposal activities at the injection wells owned or operated by the defendants throughout the state of Oklahoma and southern Kansas.”
For a longer version of this article, please check out the story Houston Chronicle’s FuelFix here.