Environmental groups have threatened to sue the Obama administration for failing to prevent swarms of earthquakes that came in the wake of America’s fracking boom.
In a first step to a lawsuit, the groups on Wednesday challenged the Environmental Protection Agency to improve what they said were weak laws governing the disposal of fracking waste – or go to court.
The groups, led by the Environmental Integrity Project, said the EPA had stalled for years in regulating waste from the oil and gas industry.
Scientists have connected a spike in earthquakes in Ohio and Oklahoma to disposal of that waste in underground injection wells.
The groups said the EPA also needed tougher rules to stop disposal of fracking waste in open-air pits, which can leak toxic chemicals, or ordinary municipal landfills, which are not equipped to deal with radioactive elements in the materials.
Fracking generates a tremendous amount of waste – 280bn US gallons in 2012, or enough to sink all of Washington DC beneath a 22ft-deep toxic lagoon, according to a 2013 report from Environment America, which did not join the suit.