Tulsa World on Oil Industry and Oklahoma Earthquakes: ‘Science Questioned,’ Studies Unfinished

• 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.

Joe Wertz / StateImpact Oklahoma

University of Oklahoma graduate students near Wellston, Okla., installing a seismometer to study central-Oklahoma's earthquake swarm

Reporters Ziva Branstetter and Curtis Killman reviewed hundreds of documents and examined data on Oklahoma’s earthquake swarm for a multi-part story published Sunday in the Tulsa World.

The “Quake Debate”series, presented online in two parts — part one here; part two here — provides a good overview of the earthquake uptick, which many scientists say has likely been caused, at least in part, by wastewater disposal wells used by the oil and gas industry, as well as the response by industry and state officials.

Some interesting details from the reporting:

• The Oklahoma Geological Survey, “the agency charged with providing public information about earthquakes,” has been “pressured” by the energy industry and “has not issued final studies on the state’s most damaging earthquakes or ‘swarms’ of earthquakes. It shelved a plan to seek public comment on ‘best practices’ for oil and gas operations after the energy industry protested.”
• “At least five insurance companies have excluded earthquakes triggered by fracking and wastewater injection from Oklahoma policies. While about 25 percent of Oklahomans with homeowners insurance have earthquake policies, the majority of claims filed last year with the state’s largest insurers have not been paid.”
• “We are virtually certain that almost everything that we are seeing in terms of increased seismicity not only in Oklahoma but in Texas are all related to recent changes in the way that oil and gas are being produced. Scientifically I don’t think there’s really a lot of doubt about that,” said Bill Ellsworth, a research geophysicist for the U.S. Geological Survey.