From Channel 8 news:

After months of study, seismologists at SMU say a saltwater injection well at the southern end of the airport is a “plausible” cause.

The injection well pumps fluids nearly three miles deep into the earth’s crust. This is how drilling companies get rid of waste water from gas drilling.

When activity at the D/FW waste well stopped last year, so did the earthquakes. Instruments detected 179 of them.

Well, we never would have guessed that, huh? Yeah, right. I posted about this a while back and people were speculating then that the increased seismic activity could be due to drilling. I mean, when we start having earthquakes in a geologically stable area like North Texas and the only thing that’s changed in the last 10,000 years or more is that we started drilling for gas (using modern techniques, that is), it’s not hard to connect the dots.

Naturally the response of the company responsible for drilling is to deny any connection:

Chesapeake Energy, which operated the injection well, issued a statement saying “a direct causal relationship” with the well “has not been scientifically proven.” The statement adds that the company agrees with researchers that “natural gas drilling, hydraulic fracturing and production are not related to seismic activity…”

I mean, what else do you expect? For more on this issue (and drilling in Texas in general), visit TXSharon’s blog.