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EPA Shuts Down 17 Disposal Wells In Osage County After Saturday’s Earthquake

A team of earthquake scientists deploys 12" sensors in a field near Pawnee after Saturday's 5.6 magnitude earthquake.
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A team of earthquake scientists deploys 12" sensors in a field near Pawnee after Saturday's 5.6 magnitude earthquake.

More than a dozen wastewater disposal wells in the Osage Nation have been shut down after Saturday’s earthquake – one of the strongest in Oklahoma history.

The Environmental Protection Agency notified the state Tuesday it ordered 17 wells closed in a 211-square mile area in Osage County. The Oklahoma Corporation Commission has no authority over oil and gas production facilities on tribal land, The Oklahoman’s Paul Monies and Adam Wilmoth report:

With the Osage Tribe Allotment Act of 1906, Congress granted the tribe control of all mineral rights in the county and placed the county under federal jurisdiction. The Bureau of Indian Affairs regulates oil and natural gas production wells while the EPA oversees disposal wells in the county. “We've reached out to BIA several times and have received no help at all, oftentimes not even a contact back,” [Oklahoma Secretary of Energy and Environment Michael] Teague said. “But (EPA) Region 6 has been a different story. They've been very helpful, very supportive.”

Bob Jackman, a Tulsa geologist who’s also an oil and gas operator, sharply criticized the Bureau for their regulatory practices.

“The BIA in Osage County couldn't run a damn outhouse,” said Jackman, who owns interests in several producing wells in eastern Osage County. “Their records are in disarray. They don't understand where all their disposal wells even are. “The seriousness of this dictates action. It could be setting us up for some stronger earthquakes. These things radiate out, but we don't know if they're teeing up other quakes.”

StateImpact Oklahoma’s Joe Wertz, who has spent years covering the scientific link between seismic activity and wastewater disposal wells, told NPR’s All Things Considered host Michel Martin on Saturday it took state officials a while to acknowledge a correlation:

It was really only last year that our state geological survey came out and formally, publicly acknowledged the link, and some number of months later that Governor Mary Fallin came out and publicly acknowledged the link. MARTIN: Before we let you go, any sense of where public opinion is about this? WERTZ: Yeah, well, people who are experiencing the shaking, they're worried, and they want it to stop. And I think, at least in my interviews with people, who have maybe expressed reluctance to connect the oil industry, at least initially, have come around because the scientific evidence has been so persistent and has really built.

ODOT: Bridges Safe

Oklahoma Department of Transportation executive director Mike Patterson told board members during a meeting Tuesday his crews inspected more than 180 bridges across the state, and found only two cosmetic issues.

Patterson credited the agency’s work to repair and replace Oklahoma’s structurally deficient structures, the Oklahoma Public Media Exchange’s Michael Cross reports:

"There were three field divisions that responded out of Tulsa, Perry and Buffalo to get those bridges inspected and provide some safe confidence to the traveling public that everything was okay,” Patterson said. In all the crews managed to complete an in depth look at all the bridges about five hours after the quake. "The deck is in good shape, the superstructure is still strong and able to carry the load,” Patterson said. “But, you're looking at the smaller components like the bearings on steel bridges and making sure that the concrete is still intact and that there are no structural cracks.”

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Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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