As nerves fray, Railroad Commission to investigate Snyder quakes for fracking connection
SNYDER — With over 60 earthquakes in one week, nerves are beginning to shake nearly as much as the buildings in Scurry County.
“You know, we've had (quakes) as long as I think time's been recorded here, as long as we've had people here” said county Judge Dan Hicks on Friday. “But we don't know of any that were this intense.”
On Friday night, the Railroad Commission of Texas announced they were looking into any connections between the tremors and the injection of fluids into the ground for the extraction of petroleum products.
Known as “fracking," the process has long been pointed to as the cause for earthquakes in local regions that had rarely, if ever, seen them before.
“In efforts to reduce seismicity possibly caused by underground injection of produced water, several operators in the area have converted deep saltwater disposal wells to shallow saltwater disposal wells within the last year,” the RRC wrote in a Friday statement.
Inspectors from the agency will be inspecting those wells this week within the 2.5 miles in which the cluster of earthquakes occurred.
“The RRC will evaluate next steps that can be taken to mitigate earthquakes,” the state agency added. “We’ll continue to take measures necessary to protect the environment and residents in the area.”
Rising intensity
Most of the quakes have had a magnitude around 2.0, give or take a decimal. But last week three were measured as over 4.0 with Friday’s attention-getting earthquake at 9:28 a.m. coming in as a 5.1 tremor.
It had been preceded nearly ten minutes earlier by a 2.3 quake and then afterward was followed by 11 more tremors through the day. Most were between 3.0 and 2.0, centered in an area about 11 miles east of Snyder in the area of Camp Springs Cemetery. On Saturday just after 4 p.m., the area was hit with a 4.3 quake.
Hicks on Friday declared a state of emergency in Scurry County after Friday’s quake. The county’s buildings can handle a few quakes here and there, but the cumulative effects of so many smaller ones, punctuated by larger shaking, has become cause for concern.
'The building was shaking pretty good.'
From his second floor office in the Scurry County Courthouse, he recalled workers in other offices becoming alarmed during Friday’s quake. Trophies were rattling inside their display cabinets, while pictures bounced against the walls upon which they hung.
“The building was shaking pretty good,” Hicks said.
During a video teleconference with sister newspapers, a Reporter-News employee in Abilene first reported the shaking during their meeting. Approximately 30 seconds later, an employee on the same call near Wichita Falls reported their own shaking.
Hicks said they had not seen any damage to building exteriors, and Scurry County Emergency Management Coordinator Jay Callaway confirmed that most of the damage was inside structures.
“It’s all on private property. What I do know is most of the damage has been like cracked sealants, cracked walls, mortar traps in the brick,” Callaway said. “We're encouraging everybody to use the iSTAT form that's on the city of Snyder Emergency Management Facebook page.”
Data will drive the relief
Those filling out the Texas Department of Emergency Management's Individual State of Texas Assessment Tool online will contribute to the data points needed by the county in the disaster assessment process. The data is used in part to determine how much assistance might come to the area. The form is also available in Spanish.
“It allows the state to see what damages are coming in,” Callaway explained.
More: Big Country, did you feel that earthquake?
More: Scurry County judge issues disaster declaration after 5.1 earthquake, 60 other earthquakes
This article originally appeared on Abilene Reporter-News: Railroad Commission to probe Snyder quakes for fracking connection
