{"id":39681,"date":"2015-02-11T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2015-02-11T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=39681"},"modified":"2015-02-13T09:31:54","modified_gmt":"2015-02-13T15:31:54","slug":"epa-team-looking-at-relationship-between-irving-quakes-and-disposal-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2015\/02\/11\/epa-team-looking-at-relationship-between-irving-quakes-and-disposal-well\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA Team Looking At Relationship Between Irving Quakes and Disposal Well"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_39735\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Philip Dellinger is head of the EPA\u2019s Underground Injection Control Section for Region 6 in Dallas.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/02\/Philip.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-39735\" alt=\"Philip Dellinger is head of the EPA\u2019s Underground Injection Control Section for Region 6 in Dallas.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/02\/Philip-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/02\/Philip-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2015\/02\/Philip-620x465.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Philip Issa<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Philip Dellinger is head of the EPA\u2019s Underground Injection Control Section for Region 6 in Dallas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The earthquakes that have shaken Dallas and Irving, Texas the last several months have people looking into whether oil and gas activity in the area plays a role. Some of those people work at the Environmental Protection Agency. But EPA researchers say they&#8217;re not getting the data they&#8217;ve requested from Texas state oil and gas regulators to investigate the possible link.<\/p>\n<p>Philip Dellinger is head of the EPA\u2019s Underground Injection Control Section in Dallas. At a conference of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gwpc.org\/\">Groundwater Protection Council<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday, he showed early results from a study his team conducted on earthquakes around Irving.<\/p>\n<p>The group looked at the use of wastewater disposal wells closest to Irving earthquakes. Dellinger does not necessarily believe the recent quakes are related to disposal wells,\u00a0where wastewater from oil and gas drilling is pumped underground. But these types of wells\u00a0have caused other earthquakes, so his team wanted to see what wells were close to the Irving events.<\/p>\n<p>His choice for where to look was simple. There are only two wells near the recent quakes, and one had been plugged up.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Even the active well is &#8220;a good distance off,&#8221; says Dellinger, &#8220;it\u2019s ten or eleven miles away from the [earthquake] activity.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"related-content alignleft\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2015\/01\/21\/us-geological-survey-to-increase-earthquakes-risk-levels-in-texas\/\">US Geological Survey to Increase Earthquake Risk Levels in Texas<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2015\/01\/08\/whats-behind-the-earthquakes-in-dallas\/\">What&#8217;s Behind the Earthquakes in Dallas?<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/10\/28\/responding-to-quakes-texas-passes-disposal-well-rules\/\">Responding to Quakes, Texas Passes Disposal Well Rules<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2012\/07\/109445102.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/earthquake\/\">How Oil and Gas Disposal Wells Can Cause Earthquakes<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/Class1Wells-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/injection-well\/\">How Do Disposal Wells Work?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Using an approach outlined in the EPA&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/Region5\/water\/uic\/ntwg\/pdfs\/induced-seismicity-201502.pdf\">new report on manmade earthquakes<\/a>, the team used data on the volume of fluid being injected into the wells and the rate of injection. It looked at how that might impact the underground region where the wastewater was flowing. It compared that data to earthquakes going years back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt showed some correspondence with some of the early earthquakes, but some of those early earthquakes were many miles away from the recent Irving earthquakes,&#8221;\u00a0Dellinger says.<\/p>\n<p>Those quakes were also thought to be associated with the disposal well that is now plugged up.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The recent earthquakes are<b style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\u00a0<\/b>clustered in a localized area and they were very frequent.\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>So the EPA team\u00a0requested daily injection data\u00a0for the disposal well that is still in operation. The request was made to\u00a0state oil and gas regulators, The Railroad Commission of Texas, in January, after quakes above 3.0 began shaking the Dallas region.<\/p>\n<p>Dellinger says the Railroad Commission has not yet shared any data.\u00a0When asked if he knew why the\u00a0commission\u00a0had not passed the data along, he said, &#8220;No.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In a statement provided to StateImpact Texas, the Railroad Commission said that their staff seismologist, Dr. Craig Pearson, \u201chas not found it necessary to request additional information beyond what is required by Railroad Commission rules from the closest disposal well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The EPA&#8217;s Dellinger appears confident the commission could share the data if it wanted to.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After the last few years of seeing this [earthquake activity] here in the South Central part of the country, these regulators are looking at disposal wells,&#8221; says Dellinger. &#8220;You just don\u2019t hear it on the news.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Using an approach outlined in the EPA&#8217;s new report on manmade earthquakes, the team used data on the volume of fluid being injected into the wells and the rate of injection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[211,104],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39681"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39681"}],"version-history":[{"count":71,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39776,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39681\/revisions\/39776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}