Oil Executive Says He Didn’t Try to Get Earthquake Scientists Fired

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Jemal Countess / Getty Images for TIME

Harold Hamm in April 2012 at TIME Magazine's 100 Most Influential People In the World gala in New York City

Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder and CEO of Continental Resources, denies a report that told a University of Oklahoma dean he wanted scientists dismissed who were researching links between oil and gas production and Oklahoma’s exponential increase in earthquakes.

In emails obtained by Bloomberg’s Benjamin Elgin, Larry Grillot, then the dean of OU’s Mewbourne College of Earth and Energy, wrote to colleagues after a meeting with the oil executive: “Mr. Hamm is very upset at some of the earthquake reporting to the point that he would like to see select OGS staff dismissed,” Grillot wrote, referring to the Oklahoma Geological Survey, a state agency operated through the university.

Hamm and Continental declined comment to Bloomberg, but the oilman disputed the report in a story by different reporter, Adam Wilmoth of The Oklahoman:

“All that was false. It’s incorrect,” Hamm said. “Nobody asked for anybody to be removed. Nobody has been let go. Nobody was asked to be let go.”

The emails in the Bloomberg story follow other emails obtained by EnergyWire’s Mike Sorgahan, which detail a meeting Hamm had with OGS seismologist Austin Holland and OU President David Boren. Boren is a board member at Continental and Hamm is a major university donor. Holland described the meeting as “just a little bit intimidating,” but said the conversation never effected his scientific research. For their part, Hamm and Boren say the meeting was informational in nature.

Grillot confirmed his discussion with Hamm in an interview with Bloomberg, but said nobody was dismissed from OGS and that he never relayed the oil executive’s displeasure with the agency’s staff.