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Jun 12, 2009 4:48 pm US/Central
Drilling Might Be Culprit Behind Texas Earthquakes
JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer
CLEBURNE, Texas (AP) ―
The earth moved here on June 2. It was the first recorded earthquake in this Texas town's 140-year history — but not the last.
There have been four small earthquakes since, none with a magnitude
greater than 2.8. The most recent ones came Tuesday night, just as the
City Council was meeting in an emergency session to discuss what to do
about the ground moving.
The council's solution was to hire a geology consultant to try to
answer the question on everyone's mind: Is natural gas drilling — which
began in earnest here in 2001 and has brought great prosperity to
Cleburne and other towns across North Texas — causing the quakes?
"I think John Q. Public thinks there is a correlation with
drilling," Mayor Ted Reynolds said. "We haven't had a quake in recorded
history, and all the sudden you drill and there are earthquakes."
At issue is a drilling practice called "fracking," in which water is
injected into the ground at high pressure to fracture the layers of
shale and release natural gas trapped in the rock.
There is no consensus among scientists about whether the practice is
contributing to the quakes. But such seismic activity was once rare in
Texas and seems to be increasing lately, lending support to the theory
that drilling is having a destabilizing effect.
On May 16, three small quakes shook Bedford, a suburb of Dallas and
Fort Worth. Two small earthquakes hit nearby Grand Prairie and Irving
on Oct. 31, and again on Nov. 1.
The towns sit upon the Barnett Shale, a geologic formation that is
perhaps the nation's richest natural gas field. The area is estimated
to have 30 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas and provides about 7
percent of the country's supply.
The drilling's economic impact has been significant, because gas
companies pay signing bonuses and royalties to property owners for the
right to drill beneath their land. Signing bonuses climbed to around
$25,000 an acre at the boom's peak.
Cleburne agreed to lease the mineral rights in the earliest stages
of the frenzy, receiving a modest $55 an acre for 3,500 acres of city
land. There are about 200 drilling sites in Cleburne, and it is not
unusual to see cattle chewing grass in the shadow of gas pipes.
Cleburne has collected between $20 million and $25 million in
royalties since 2001, about $6 million in 2008 alone, Reynolds said.
Such riches have allowed the building of parks and sports complexes in
the city of 30,000, about 30 miles south of Fort Worth.
"That's a lot of libraries and police cars," the mayor said proudly.
"It's enabled us to escape the worst part of the recession, enables us
to keep tax rates low and lowered unemployment."
Landowners are also getting theirs. Locals call it "mailbox money,"
occasional royalty checks that arrive from the gas companies. The
mayor, a contractor who owns three quarters of an acre, said his most
recent check, for three months' worth of royalties, was nearly $850.
"It's better than a poke in the eye," he said.
Although many residents never felt the quakes, those who did have
described them in different ways. When the first few hit, some ran
outside to see if a house had exploded. The city manager said he
thought his wife was closing the garage door. Picture frames and
windows rattled.
None of the quakes caused any damage or injuries, though city
officials said they are keeping a close eye on the earthen dam at Lake
Pat Cleburne.
There seems to be little fear around town of any catastrophic
damage, but the ground shaking is unnerving nonetheless. Townspeople
want to find out at least what is causing it, even if it is unclear
whether anything can be done about it.
The gas is extracted through a process known as horizontal drilling.
A company will drill roughly 5,000 feet to 7,000 feet down and then go
horizontally for as much as 4,000 feet or so. Then the fracking begins.
A spokeswoman for Chesapeake Energy, which owns most of the mineral
rights leases in the Cleburne area, said the company is "eager to get
to the facts" and is working with the government and local researchers
to determine whether there is a link.
"Drilling has occurred for more than a hundred years," Julie Wilson
said in an e-mail. "Tens of thousands of wells have been drilled with
no nearby earthquakes at all; hundreds of earthquakes have occurred
with no drilling nearby."
Cliff Frohlich, a scientist at the University of Texas and author of
"Texas Earthquakes," said he believes more than 20 Texas earthquakes in
the past 100 years are related to drilling for petroleum and gas. But
he added: "I would be surprised if a seriously damaging earthquake came
out of this."
John Breyer, a petroleum geologist and professor at Texas Christian
University, said drilling is absolutely not causing the earthquakes.
"It's like the Great Wall of China," he said. "If you pull a brick
out of the wall every half-mile, you are not going to affect the
stability of the structure."
The mayor said he is open to any answer the city's geologist brings him.
"We are going to find out what's causing them and if it is something
that we can deal with, I promise we will deal with it," Reynolds said.
"But it's like the dog that chases the car and catches the car: I don't
know what you do then."
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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