Two fracking bills have been introduced in the Kansas Legislature that are supported by the Sierra Club’s Kansas Chapter.
One bill calls for stricter regulations for drilling and wastewater disposal.
Another bill requires drillers to start a financial risk pool to pay for damages to persons or property. Until that happens there would be a moratorium on drilling and wastewater injections.
Some people are reporting they cannot get insurance companies to pay for their damage and cannot afford the cost of the damages themselves, according to the Sierra Club. The damages and costs are associated with the operation of hydraulic fracturing and the increased injection well activity by the oil and gas companies.
“The damages to the property of the people of Kansas amount to nothing less than a huge tax on those people and a giant subsidy to the oil and gas companies,” said Joe Spease, chair of the Hydraulic Fracturing Committee of the Kansas Sierra Club. “A financial risk pool will be a sensible remedy that is a fair and just means of compensation for their damages.”
U.S. Geological Survey scientists released a study in mid-September of 2014 confirming the cause-and-effect relationship between disposal of the fracking fluids into injection wells and the resulting earthquakes. Some officials have sought to make a distinction between “fracking,” which is technically the fracturing of the geologic layer of rock underground that contains the desired oil or gas, and the disposing of waste fluids produced in the fracking process.
“Without fracking we would have no fracking fluids,” Spease said, “so efforts to disconnect the fluids from the fracking seem pointless and confusing to people experiencing earthquake damages.”
The Sierra Club is gathering information to support the need for the two bills. Kansans with damages from recent earthquakes can submit damage photos, written descriptions, and estimated costs for repairs to this [email protected].