Earthquakes in Oklahoma increased by 50 percent in 2015, surpassing the previous year’s record and sounding new alarms over the risks of oil and gas operations like hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
In fact, according to the state public utilities regulator, Oklahoma now officially experiences more earthquakes than anywhere else in the world—likely thanks to its expanding fossil fuel industry and the subsequent swell of wastewater disposal operations that scientists say triggers seismic activity.
U.S. Geological Survey data shows that Oklahoma was hit by 881 earthquakes with a magnitude of 3 or higher, an average of 2.4 per day—up from 585 in 2014.
“For all of us involved, frustration isn’t even a word, you feel just as every other resident does, that you’re being physically attacked, like you’re dealing with a living breathing thing,” Matt Skinner, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), told a local outlet on Monday.
About 1.5 billion barrels of wastewater from oil and gas sites were disposed of underground in the state last year.
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