HUTCHINSON — Since July of last year, three public forums have been held in the area regarding the seismic activity that has rattled the Hutchinson area. That included one Thursday evening at the Hutchinson Public Library where a group of panelists answered questions ranging from the cause of the tumblers to the possible effect on property values.
The latest activity in August resulted in more than 40 earthquakes over a week with two measuring above four on the Richter scale. The quakes are thought to be from an increase in deep injection well activity from increased oil and gas production in Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Rick Miller with the Kansas Geological Survey says they do have a little better understanding of what is happening in the Hutchinson area.
“What we think is going on is a whole sequence of faults, like taking a sheet cake and just cutting it up into pieces, all of those slices in the cake are faults and you have a whole series of faults laying side by side,” Miller said. “The earthquake cluster is about three miles long east and west and about two miles wide north and south.”
Miller says the area is too small to generate an earthquake as strong as we have experienced, so a number of these faults are moving simultaneously in the area.
While the stronger earthquakes have caused some superficial damage, engineer Brent Engelland says it is not significant and is confined to older, taller buildings in the city. “There were a number of cosmetic cracks in commercial buildings around town,” Engelland said. “The only thing that would border on structural with the magnitude four that we had were buildings that were already in disrepair.”
As far as predicting earthquakes, several websites have boasted that they accurately predicted the August earthquakes. Miller took time to address that. “There is no current scientific accepted methodology for predicting earthquakes,” Miller said. “I can tell you, based on the number (of quakes) we’ve had, that it would not be unreasonable to predict a four. I can do that. Can I tell you what day? No. Can I tell you what month? No. Can I tell you what year? No.”
Citizens have been concerned with what will happen to property values and what people new to Hutchinson are saying about the earthquakes. Cindy Rehlander with the Reno County Appraiser’s Office says realtors are getting questions from potential homebuyers.
“We’re not seeing anybody in Reno County balking or not wanting to buy a new house or upgrade their home,” Rehlander said. “A couple of the realtors did mention that it is a little bit of a concern. Someone coming in from Colorado or somewhere will question what is going on with the earthquakes.”
Engelland and Rehlander said they don’t expect valuations of property to fall nor insurance rates to increase with the activity. Engelland says people are a little bit hypersensitive to the quakes, but that should decrease with time.