FRACKING-CAUSED EARTHQUAKES: HOW ALLEGED THREATS COULD TRIGGER THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS' SECTION 10 JURISDICTION

摘要

A growing body of science links hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to damage-causing earthquakes. Scientists and citizen groups fear these earthquakes could critically damage public civil works projects-e.g., dams, locks, and levees-that provide economic, environmental, and recreational benefits to the United States. This Comment argues that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), as caretaker of these public civil works projects and their associated navigable waters, has sufficient legal authority under section 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act to manage the alleged risks. This Comment analyzes how section 10 has been successfully applied to regulate activities that, like tracking, take place outside of navigable waterways yet threaten the navigable capacity of U.S. waters. This Comment maintains that pursuant to section 10, the Corps could subject certain tracking operations to its existing permit program and seek to enjoin other similar operations. After acknowledging likely resistance to what would be an expansion of federal control over tracking, this Comment concludes that section 10 provides a strong legal foundation upon which the Corps could take action to protect its civil works projects from threats posed by fracking-caused earthquakes.