The Sierra Club is calling on Kansas lawmakers to protect Kansans from earthquakes and pollution linked to fracking.
The environmental group is backing two bills at the Statehouse. One would set new requirements for wells using hydraulic fracturing. The other would make drillers provide a risk pool to pay for damages caused by the industry. Until that pool is established, there would be a moratorium on new injection disposal wells in Harper and Sumner counties, where earthquake activity has been unusually high. The Sierra Club’s Joe Spease says the KCC has passed the buck to the legislature—which has shown no interest in taking action.
“If the legislature won ‘t even entertain these bills to protect people, in my opinion they’re not doing their job,” says Spease.
Spease says earthquake damage to the Harper County Courthouse alone exceeds a million dollars, and hundreds of homes and businesses have been damaged. He says forcing the victims to pay for the damage is essentially a huge tax increase on them.