EARTHQUAKES: Drillers face first class-action suit for triggered temblors

EARTHQUAKES: Drillers face first class-action suit for triggered temblors (Subscription required) by Mike Soraghan, July 5, 2012, E&E Publishing
“Defendants, experienced in these operations, were well aware of the connection between injection wells and seismic activity, and acted in disregard of these facts,” says the suit, filed by the Little Rock class-action firm Emerson Poynter LLP on behalf of Stephen Hearn and several other residents of Faulkner County, Ark. The suit says that the companies’ “ultrahazardous” actions have made residents fear for their safety and caused the cost of earthquake insurance to skyrocket. … Scientists are investigating whether other earthquakes in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas are linked to drilling activities such as waste injection. Seismologists at the U.S. Geological Survey have suggested that some of those quakes, along with the Arkansas swarm, are part of a “remarkable” increase in the number of earthquakes in the middle of the country that is “almost certainly man-made” and likely linked to oil and gas operations (EnergyWire, March 29). First Amended and Consolidated Class Action Complaint

[Refer also to: Halcyon hot springs vanish after B.C. quake ]

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