MDN has been following the story of 11 small earthquakes in the Youngstown, Ohio area early last week (see # of Youngstown Earthquakes go from 2 to 11 – Fracking to Blame?). We pointed out in that story that we are aware of exactly one proven instance where fracking a well has caused an earthquake–in England. Yesterday we ran a story about the PA DEP granting permits to Hilcorp to drill 7 new wells just 6 miles away from where Hilcorp voluntarily stopped drilling in Ohio while Ohio officials check out a possible connection between their drilling and the earthquakes (see Hilcorp Awarded Permits to Drill 7 New Wells Near Earthquake Zone).
In yesterday’s story we made the statement that “fracking simply does not cause earthquakes.” That statement was our short-hand way of saying “almost never, statistically never” but as one MDN reader pointed out, “not” means “100% not” and so our statement was factually incorrect. For that we apologize and want to correct the record and tell you about the three known times fracking has caused earthquakes…
