In just about two weeks, it will be a year since the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit accusing three Oklahoma energy companies of causing earthquakes in the state. With the help of the Washington, D-C based group Public Justice, the Sierra Club accused New Dominion, Chesapeake Operating and Devon Energy Production Company of causing the quakes through their injection wells.
Since the filing in Oklahoma City federal court, there have been 105 separate filings in the case now before U.S. District Judge Stephen P. Friot. But the most recent was in November 2016 and it’s evident the case is nowhere close to going to trial.
The Sierra Club later added SandRidge Energy as a defendant and the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by SandRidge created additional filings.
At the time of the original lawsuit, Public Justice and the Sierra Club demanded that the companies “reduce, immediately and substantially, the amounts of production waste they are injecting into the ground.”
“The science laid out in our case is clear,” said Paul Bland at the time of the filing. He is the executive director of Public Justice. “This lawsuit, which we filed after the three companies (and later four) named in our suit refused to take steps of their own, is an action brought by residents of Oklahoma in an attempt to protect their property, their communities and their lives.”