State investigating two quakes near fracking site
NEW CASTLE – The state Department of Environmental Protection is investigating whether fracking contributed to two small earthquakes near a western Pennsylvania drilling operation.
DEP spokeswoman Melanie Williams said Hilcorp Energy Co. stopped fracking at the Mahoning Township site at about noon Monday. That was about 12 hours after the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a magnitude-1.9 earthquake and about 10 hours before another quake of the same size was recorded.
A woman who answered the company’s phone in New Castle on Thursday referred the Associated Press to a spokesman at the company’s Houston headquarters who wasn’t immediately available.
Williams said Hilcorp was fracking two wells on a four-well pad about 45 miles northwest of Pittsburgh when the first quake occurred.
There were no reports of property damage.