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After an 11th minor quake hit northeast Ohio Saturday, officials said the seismic activity in the area could be related to injection of wastewater into the ground near a fault line.
The 4.0-magnitude quake in McDonald caused no serious injuries or property damage, but residents panicked as bookshelves shook and pictures and lamps fell from tables, The Associated Press reported.
The Ohio Seismic Network says more small quakes are possible even as authorities are looking into possible causes.
The wastewater containing large amounts of a salt, especially sodium chloride, comes from “fracking,” which refers to the procedure of creating fractures in rocks and rock formations by injecting fluid into cracks to force them further open allowing more oil and gas to flow out of the formation and into the wellbore for extraction.
While officials admitted the minor quakes could be related to injection of wastewater into the ground, Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Jim Zehringer denied that fracking, which federal regulators say is safe, could be the cause.
“The seismic events are not a direct result of fracking,” Zehringer was quoted as saying during a news teleconference. He added that four injection wells within a five-mile radius of an already shuttered well in Youngstown, which is outside of McDonald, will remain inactive while further scientific research is conducted.
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Northstar Disposal Services LLC, which owns the Youngstown injection well, stopped injecting brine into the ground Friday.
This Youngstown-area well is one of the 177 similar wells around Ohio, so why are the other sites not causing seismic activity, the department questions. The demand of environmentalists to close down all the injection wells is not rational, Zehringer said.
Although Ohio is far from the Earth’s major tectonic plates, it was rattled by 11 earthquakes in 2011. Prior to the Saturday’s quake, a 2.7-magnitude earthquake hit near Youngstown early on Dec. 24.
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