Texas Railroad Investigates Oil Concerns After 5.4-Magnitude Quake, The State’s Largest In 3 Decades

The agency said Texas Railroad Commission inspectors are investigating a 5.4-magnitude earthquake that was recorded west of the Pecos near the border of Reeves and Culberson counties on Wednesday.

The video above is from a previous KENS report on San Antonio’s response to the earthquake.

The quake, confirmed by the USGS, was the largest earthquake recorded in the state since 1995 and the third largest in Texas history, according to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

RELATED: A 5.3-magnitude West Texas quake, the third largest in the state, shakes San Antonio

The largest earthquake in Texas history was a 5.8-magnitude earthquake recorded in 1931 southwest of Valentine, according to the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

“It felt like a truck had hit the house,” said David Shiflett, 74, a farmer in Reeves County, near the epicenter. “It looked as if a real gale force wind had come.”

It was the largest earthquake for Texas in nearly three decades, but it is far from the only one. Shifflett has endured damage from small earthquakes for years. One, circa 2016, he said, left a vast bulge across 2,000 acres, cracking pipes and destroying the gravity-fed irrigation system.

The quake could be felt as far away as Carlsbad, New Mexico and El Paso, and forced University Health, Bexar County Hospital District, to evacuate a historic hospital building in downtown San Antonio after structural engineers declared it unsafe. The over 100-year-old building was known as the most modern hospital of its kind in the Southwest.

Most of the building’s clinical services were moved to a new building about a decade ago, but some administrative services are still located on the historic site. Those offices have now been moved to a different location, according to a university health statement.

The number of earthquakes recorded in Texas has increased in recent years, particularly in the Permian Basin in West Texas, which is the state’s most productive oil and gas region. Scientific studies have linked seismic activity to the dumping of polluted brine deep underground – a practice common by oil companies at the end of fracking that can awaken dormant fault lines.

Between three and six barrels of salty, polluted water rise to the surface with each barrel of oil during fracking—ancient water that was trapped underground by rock formations.

Years of hundreds of millions of gallons of polluted water being pumped daily underground in Texas has coincided with more frequent and powerful earthquakes in the state: An analysis by The Texas Tribune found that the number of earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 and greater doubled in 2021 from the previous year.

Related: Texas earthquakes doubled in 2021. Scientists cite oil companies injecting sludge water underground

A study by the USGS and the University of Texas found that the vast majority of earthquakes in the last two decades that occurred near Pecos were likely caused by increased sewage disposal.

In recent years, the Railroad Authority, which regulates oil and gas activity in the state and issues permits for water injection wells, has established several “seismic response zones” in West Texas, where the agency has asked companies to limit water disposal activities. and approval of an industry-led plan to reduce seismic activity.

This week’s earthquake occurred in a response area in Culberson and Reeves counties that was created earlier this year. The agency said its inspectors are reviewing the industrial clusters plan and examining nearby water disposal activity. Operators may be required to reduce wastewater injection as a result of the earthquake, according to a statement from the Railways Commission.

It may take several months to a year after reducing or stopping wastewater injection to the area for it to stop shaking; The Railways Commission warned in a statement on Thursday that the historical activity indicated that the interval could be between 12 and 18 months.

Nita Rain, 73, of Toyahvale, in Reeves County, has spent years protesting well disposal permits because she fears they will trigger earthquakes that will destroy the area’s aquifer.

An earthquake in 1995, before the fracking boom, damaged the massive natural springs in nearby Balmorhea State Park, turning the waters murky and shutting down recreational swimming for months.

“Those springs are gone, this valley is going to die,” said Rayne. “This is our livelihood.”

Shiflett, the Reeves County farmer, said he strongly supports the oil sector but believes Texas regulators are not doing their part to limit its impact on geological stability.

“The railways are doing a lousy job, they are letting the oil companies do whatever they want,” he said. “They let them exert very high pressure underground very close to the surface.”

The Texas Tribune is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans—and engages with them—about public policy, politics, government, and statewide issues.

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